


listen to my heart (can you hear it sing?)

by vampirerising



Series: suddenly the world seems such a perfect place [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon - Book & Movie Combination, Canon Compliant, Deadlights (IT), Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Fix-It of Sorts, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, M/M, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Stan Being The Best™, Stan is still dead but a very major part of this fic, The Turtle (IT) CAN Help Us, Timelines, ghost!stan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2020-11-28 02:18:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 137,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20958827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampirerising/pseuds/vampirerising
Summary: “You need to wake up now,” Stan says softly. “This isn’t real.”“I know, but I can’t,” Richie sobs. “I don’t want to be here.”Not again. Never again. It is dead, why is It still haunting him?Stan fixes him with one of those looks of his, the one where he can see his every thought as if it were written on his face. “That’s not true, Trashmouth.”—Alternatively: We all know Richie gets caught in the Deadlights, but do wereallyknow what happens after?(Deadlights, timelines, Stan’s ghostly meddling—oh, my.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Moulin Rouge's "Come What May."

Richie has a very vivid memory of himself yelling, “_Rock war__,_” and throwing a stone the size of his fist at Henry Bowers the second he starts taunting Pennywise the Dancing Clo—he’s a spider now—Pennywise the Dancing Spider. Yuck.

Mike gets thrown across the cavern, rolling to a stop, and Richie desperately hopes he gets up from that. He strains to see, but Pennywise looms over him, pincer-legs scuttling across the ground in time with Richie’s racing heart. His memory continues on a loop, split down the middle: one side is the present, the other twenty-seven years ago, and he gets hit in the goddamn forehead, and Eddie is small, and shrieking, and splashing around in water that’s getting his dumbass socks wet, flinging rock after rock after rock at Bowers and his stupid gang. They knocked that bully down then; surely they can do it again this time.

Richie’s got Pennywise’s attention, and he’s spewing nonsense like he always does, and he hopes the others get to Mike before Mike’s mortality catches up with him, and— 

Fucking _ hell_, he calls Pennywise a _ sloppy bitch_, has the audacity to quote _ Die Hard _ (_yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker_, really?), and gets caught in the Deadlights.

His first thought is, _ Wow, these are bright_. His second is, _ I wonder what I’ll_, and it stops there, just four words, because it’s like these lights have taken control of him, leaving him a carcass. A shell. He’s Richie, but he’s not, and Pennywise—_It_—can see everything. Can peel away all his layers until he’s nothing but the sniveling mess he was when he came out of the womb, pink-skinned, bloody, and crying.

He thinks maybe he says something. He feels his mouth move, make syllables. It’s a name, but what name, and why is he saying a name? He knows nothing, just himself, and every sense of dread and horror and inadequacy he’s ever felt. 

Then Richie hears something else, feels a tight whoosh of air by his ear, and he’s falling. It feels like he falls forever, like there is nothing but falling, no end no end _ no end_, not until he reaches the ground, dead on impact, a bug against a windshield. It would make sense, plummeting to his death like this. It’s the only thing. 

All of his limbs must shatter when he finally hits the ground. Richie remembers he’s fucking _ forty _ and groans, mentally cataloging each of his pains, rotating his wrists, wiggling his toes. No paralysis, he decides. No paralysis _ yet_. Who knows what’ll happen to him when he leaves Neibolt? There’s magic here that boggles the mind. 

He lets his head fall back. There’s something digging into him there, but he can’t move it. Doesn’t have the energy to. He feels like he’s run eight marathons in a row, or like he’s been hit by an eighteen-wheeler, or like— 

_ Like he’s been in the Deadlights_.

How long has he been in the Deadlights? 

Richie opens his eyes, cranes his neck to look around. It is nowhere to be seen, or maybe It is, just in a different form, and none of the Losers are around. Richie has a whole minute of mind-stopping fear, because they wouldn’t have just _ left _ him here, not even if he was dead as a doornail. They’d make sure he got out; they wouldn’t let his body just… just _ rot _ down here. So if he’s here, and they’re not, that must mean… it must mean—

Every curse word Richie knows floods through his brain. He knows a lot, made sure to memorize them all at, like, nine, and then learn them all in different languages just to spice it up. He hyperfixates on _ fuck_, though—always a good one, always reliable—until everything is _ fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_, because his friends are dead, and he is not, and he’s stuck in goddamn fucking _ Neibolt_. 

“Richie!” he thinks he hears Eddie yell. “Richie! _ Richie_, are you—Richie, I think I did it! I think I killed It! I think It’s dead for real this time!”

This is—it’s his mind playing tricks on him, because his friends are _ dead_, all of them, including Eddie. But Eddie feels real, where he launches himself at him. Feels real in his lap, feels real as he straddles him to look at him, feels real where Richie lifts his hands to grip his hips. Feels real, feels real, _ feels real_.

“Eds?”

The concern in Eddie’s face does not dissipate, even as he says, “Don’t call me that.”

He’s just. He’s just _ leaning over him_. He’s on top of him. He’s staring at him like maybe Richie has suffered severe brain damage, and maybe he has, who knows, right? Not Richie. Richie doesn’t know anything right now. He just… he’s—what does he know? He was in the Deadlights, and that shit was awful, and then he was on the ground, and it was quiet, and there was _ nothing_, and now there’s Eddie, and Eddie is— 

“Holy shit, dude, are you _ crying_?”

“No,” Richie says immediately, then, “Yeah,” then, “I think,” then nothing, because he’s grabbing Eddie by the face, careful of the fucking stab wound in his cheek, and he’s kissing him—murderous clown, wife, and dirty sewer water be damned. 

At first it is like Richie is kissing nothing, which sounds about right, because he’s _ hallucinating_, but then Eddie makes a strangled sort of sound, a combination squeak-shudder-sigh, and he’s moving his mouth against his, slow and unsure, and then more forceful and deliberate. And Richie laughs against him, because what the _ fuck_, this is _ not _ the place, and thinks he goes into cardiac arrest when he feels Eddie’s tongue swipe against his bottom lip. 

Eddie collapses against him, fisting his shirt, and they are chest to chest in a space that is not made to fit both of them. It’s like the hammock all over again, but less fun, less safe, and Richie remembers a time that doesn’t end with Eddie’s feet in his face, his glasses tossed to the side. 

It’s weird that he forgot this one, that he remembered a time with Henry Bowers’ fucking cousin in the arcade instead, but it wasn’t that summer, so maybe that was the point. This would’ve been nicer to remember, you know, without all the trauma of Paul Bunyan, and Pennywise fucking _ taunting _ him—dirty secret, dirty secret, _ I know your dirty secret, Richie_.

They’re maybe fourteen, he remembers, and he doesn’t want to remember this right now, not when Eddie is quite literally doing everything he wants him to do. Everything he’s ever _ wanted_, which—he got it once, this, but he wasn’t allowed to remember it once he left Derry.

He and Eddie were the only ones in the clubhouse. There was more than enough room for them to spread out, to be comfortable, but Eddie, being Eddie, had scrambled into the hammock with him anyway. He’d been small still, but Richie had sprouted up like a weed, all gangly limbs he still had no real control over, and they were not made to fit here, not like they (sort of, not really) used to. But Eddie had found a way in, slid under Richie’s arm, laid his head on his chest, and told him he was reading his comic too fast for him. 

Richie slowed down—not because he wanted to be nice, but because he was distracted—and didn’t like how warm he was feeling. How—_fond. _His heart was too full, and it was uncomfortable, and his body reacted before he could, reaching up to muss Eddie’s hair. He pretended to pick something out of it, told Eddie it was a spider. 

Eddie shrieked about how Stan was right, where were those stupid shower caps, _ fuck you Richie_, is it out, is it out, get it out, Richie, Richie, _ Richie_, I don’t want to swallow a fucking _ spider_. Richie only laughed, and Eddie flailed and almost overturned the hammock, almost had them both careening to the floor. Richie slammed his foot down, steadied them, steadied it, and grabbed at Eddie to get him to stop.

Eddie’s face was red, and his eyes were bright, and he was close, too close, for Richie to pretend this was normal, that his trembling hands and his heart beating loud and ferocious against his rib cage was supposed to happen when his best friend was this close. He was going to have to push him, or make fun of him, or—a _ your mom _joke built up on his tongue— 

Eddie closed the gap, kissed his mouth, and pulled back quickly.

Richie said, “Oh.”

Richie said, “Oh,” and kissed him again.

Their kiss in Its lair lasts longer than that, maybe because Richie has no concept of how to do anything else. He thinks maybe he’s still crying.

“_Don’t move_!” Bill yells, and—_great_, Bill’s not dead, but, Bill, does Richie even _ want _ to move right now? No. There’s no need to say something so _ stupid_. “You only stopped It briefly, Eddie, It’s back, and It—_do not move_!” 

“Hm,” Richie murmurs. “No stutter.”

Eddie breathes sharply through his nose. “Never stuttered when he was leading.” He lifts his head, places his palms on either side of Richie’s head, attempts to_ lift_.

“He said don’t move,” Richie whispers, “so _ don’t move_.” 

“’Kay,” Eddie says, giving up. He doesn’t attempt to kiss Richie again, which Richie would’ve liked, but he does bury his face in his neck. It’s no substitution, but it’s nice. 

Richie blinks up, feels Eddie’s heartbeat against his own, and watches in horrified fascination as one of those pincers darts out with a vengeance and pierces the air where Eddie’d been, where Eddie would’ve stayed, had Richie not pulled him close. He feels his stomach flip, his own heart stutter, and he wriggles his hand between the two of them, slides it under Eddie’s shirt, presses it against his chest. 

_ Thump, thump, thump_. 

_ Alive, alive, alive._

_ Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. _

He wilts, relief coursing through him, and once the tentacle thing is gone, he scrambles up, hooks his arms around Eddie’s waist, and gets the fuck out of Dodge. 

Eddie is still gripping his shirt, kind of too tight in a way that makes it strangle Richie at the neck, and stumbles after him. The legs follow, missing sloppily as Richie and Eddie zig this way and zag that, throwing him off course. Richie slaps Eddie’s arm, nods towards an opening, and slides through like he’s on third and he’s trying to steal home. 

A grunt indicates that Eddie’s followed, that Eddie’s through, and then Eddie is shoving Richie into a wall, and a leg darts through the opening. It doesn’t fit, it’s too big, and Pennywise shrieks in outrage, stabbing, stabbing, stabbing. “Come out and play, Losers,” It yells. “Come out and play!” 

Richie has a joke on the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t say it, but he thinks maybe It has been joking all along too: the closets, _ come out and play_, _ truth or dare, Richie, I know your secret. _Dirty secret. Dirty, dirty secret. 

Fuck. 

He looks at Eddie. There’s no way Eddie could ever be dirty. A secret, yes, but dirty? No, that’s like… that’s the opposite of Eddie. Eddie’s clean, Eddie’s pure, Eddie’s— 

“Holy _ shit_,” Ben says. “Are you two okay?” 

Eddie jumps. 

Richie looks at Ben, covered in _ dirt_, where the hell is there _ dirt _ here, and demands, “Where’d you come from?” 

Ben indicates behind him. “There’s a tunnel.” 

“Why are you always covered in blood?” Eddie asks Bev, who Richie’s just noticed, attached to Ben’s back like an appendage.

“Just reliving my youth,” Bev says flippantly. She tucks her hair behind her ear, smiles at him. “Nice throw.”

Eddie shrugs. “Guess I didn’t believe hard enough, though,” he says. 

“You believed enough, man,” Ben replies. “It was down for a while.”

Eddie looks like he expected more, expected better, of himself, and Richie wants to reach over to grab his hand. He asks, “Where are Bill and Mike?” instead, and wipes his palm on his jeans. 

“Huh-here,” Bill pants, squeezing through the tunnel, Mike hot on his heels. “It’s mad. I don’t think It expected Eddie to be the one to knuh-knock It down.” 

“I don’t think anyone expected Eddie to be the one to knock it down,” Eddie says sardonically. He lifts his hand to bite his thumbnail, looks at the grime on his fingers, and thinks better of it. It hangs uselessly by his side, clenched into a fist. Richie really wants to fucking hold it.

“Hey,” Mike says, knocking his shoulder, “that was really great. Really brave. No one else could’ve done it.”

They’re all staring at him, which Eddie hates, so he shrugs. “Rich was in the Deadlights. I couldn’t do nothing.” 

Richie grins at them. “It was really illuminating,” he says. “Really found myself in there. Why’d you keep that wonder to yourself, Bev? It was a _ trip_. It was like _ acid_.” 

“Beep, _ beep_,” Ben snaps. 

“Huh,” replies Richie gleefully. “Haven’t heard that in a while.”

Bev takes no offense. He’s not even sure she heard half of what he said, or anything, really, just _ Rich _ and _ Deadlights_. She steps around Ben, peers up into Richie’s eyes, inspects him for God knows what. “You okay?” she asks. “How do you feel? What’d you see?” 

Richie swallows around the lump in his throat—when was the last time someone genuinely asked him if he was okay? _ God_—and manages, “Eddie’s mom—”

“For fuck’s _ sake_, Richie!” Eddie hisses.

“I don’t know,” he tells Bev. “I don’t remember.”

Her lips quirk sadly, a pathetic sort of smile, and Richie wants to hold her too. Take her, and Eddie, and bring them close, never let them go. “That might be for the best,” she admits. “It’s a little bit of a mess in here.” She taps her temple. 

“Bev Marsh, a mess? Never.” 

She huffs out a laugh, and if not that, something akin to it, and gives him the hug he’s been aching to give her. They’ve bonded now, more than they did that fateful summer: the only two Losers to get caught in everything It is. He’s got hair in his mouth, blood on his face, but he doesn’t care. She’s shaking; he’s holding on for dear life, and no one says anything. 

Not until Mike says, “There has to be another way to kill It.” 

“I’m not doing another ritual,” Richie says around Bev, “so don’t you dare suggest we skewer Eddie again.” 

“That was _ you_, Trashmouth,” Mike reminds him. 

“To-may-toe, to-mah-toe.” Richie waves him off easily. He untangles from Bev, but she stays close, and Richie notices her attention is split. Half of it stays on the Losers while the rest belongs to Ben. _ Huh_, he thinks. 

They don’t have any good ideas and Pennywise is getting restless. Rock falls down behind them, clips Bill in the back of the calf. He’s shouting again, mocking them, making them come out. He likes to antagonize Richie, particularly, tells them all he’ll tell them his secret. _ I’ll do it, I’ll say it, you won’t! _ Richie ignores him. As horrifying as it seems, he doesn’t think it’s much of a secret here, with these guys. 

The situation with Pennywise, though—it’s worse this time than it was last. They had no plan then, but it seemed fine. They were young, it didn’t matter, and all Richie had to say was, _ Now I have to kill this fucking clown_, and they all rallied.

“Nobody has a bat on them, do they?” he asks. He doesn’t feel like he can hit a clown like he did before, like he’d been trying to homer straight out of Wrigley Field, but it’s worth a shot.

“No,” Bill says, just as Eddie blurts, “The leper.” 

“The leper has a bat? The leper is here? Is it going to throw up on me?”

“No, no, I—” Eddie flicks his fingers at him, like Richie is an annoying fly, and then presses them to the ones on his other hand. “The leper, in the pharmacy. It seemed so weak. It… _ was _ so weak. I put my hands around Its neck and squeezed. It got smaller and smaller until… until I could just…” He mimes strangulation, then an explosion. It’s unclear if he’s indicating death or the vomiting. 

Richie blinks. “I won’t get close enough to even reach that thing’s neck before I’m a dead man.” 

Eddie looks to Mike. They have a whole conversation without words. Mike cocks his head to the side, considers, and nods. “There are other ways to make a thing small,” he agrees. “It could work.” 

“You’re kidding,” says Richie. “Please tell me you’re—you’re _ kidding_. This is an _ immortal _entity. You’re just going to call it names until it cries? Spaghetti, are you feeling alright?” 

“Not even a little bit,” Eddie replies. “It thinks It is important with a capital-I. We should remind It that It’s not.”

“What are you gonna do? Call It a… call it a clown to Its face?” 

“No,” says Eddie, and he’s smiling. Why is he smiling? Eddie hates this goddamn sewer. “I’m gonna call it Spaghetti.”

* * *

Eddie’s a liar.

He does not call It _ Spaghetti_, and even if he did it wouldn’t _ work_. Richie doesn’t know if there are any pastas that start with _ I_, so if he does have to call this thing anything, it’s going to be _ penne_, because _ Penne Pennywise _ is fucking hysterical, and Richie thinks he is too. Not in the _ I’m so funny _ way, but in the _ I’m going crazy _ kind of way.

Because, _ listen_. _ Look_. There certainly are other ways to make a thing feel small, and calling a person names will knock them down and keep them there if you do it enough, but never in Richie’s forty years of life did he ever consider it would have the same effect on something as awful and almighty as _ It_. It’s happening, though, right before his eyes—Bill calls it a clown, and it shrieks. Ben calls it a mimic, and it recoils. Bev calls it an old lady, and it lets out an earsplitting yell. Eddie calls it dirty and disgusting, and it hisses like a vampire in the sun.

_ Clown, clown, mimic, fake, pathetic, old lady, clown, clown, _ ** _motherfucking clown_**—

It shrinks right before his eyes, smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker, until it deflates like a balloon. Richie’s all but possessed as he races after it, as he tears its arm off—the one that would’ve killed Eddie if he’d been too late—and lets Bill take the reins from there. Lets Bill, who lost a brother to this thing, who convinced them all to fight It the first time, who had a _ reason_, reach into Its chest cavity and _ pull_. 

A heart, beating.

It has one of those. Who would’ve thought?

_ Had_, because Bill—because _ they _ crush it in his fist.

It lets out a whine as it dies, as it disintegrates, and Richie catches its ugly, big-eyed gaze one last time before It is gone forever. He really fucking hates clowns.

There isn’t much time to celebrate. Bev lets out a shocked little noise, and then there is a tremor cutting through the cavern. _ That’s _ how they know it is really, truly over; last time they climbed out no problem, emerged victorious into the blinding sunlight. This time, there is nothing left to keep Neibolt standing, and they have to scramble out before they’re taken down with it.

Richie grabs Eddie’s hand and pulls, tripping over fallen rock and flying through collapsing walls. They climb and climb and climb, and Richie makes sure to keep an eye on Mike in front of him, and Eddie behind him. They all need to make it out. They need to, they need to, they need to.

Mike heaves him up, reaches down to help Eddie, and then they’re all—because Ben, and Bill, and Bev wait for them, bless their hearts—flying up the stairs, through the awful house, the kitchen where Stan’s thirteen year old head was a spider—because of the clubhouse and the shower caps, no doubt, but also as a sick foreshadowing of what was to come—and the room where Richie saw himself in a casket, in a Missing Persons flyer. They burst out the front door as it falls in on itself, evil support beams missing now that Its heart has been shattered in their hands. 

Richie blurts, “_Eddie_,” before he can stop himself, watching as the house disappears, becomes a pile of planks of wood and shards of glass.

“Right here,” Eddie says at his side, like he always was, like he always should be. He grips Richie’s elbow, but that’s not what Richie wants. He bats him aside and puts both arms around him, holding him tight to his side. 

Eddie clicks his tongue in annoyance, then wraps one arm around him, too, hooks two fingers through Richie’s belt loop. 

And then Bev is there, and Ben, and Mike, and Bill, and if Richie thinks Stan is there, too, it’s because he’s traumatized, and he fell, like, seven feet in that place, and he definitely hit his head. But Stan is definitely there, and Richie thanks him for coming, because it wouldn’t be the end of It without all seven of them. 

Bill’s face is pressed into Richie’s back, right between his shoulder blades. Richie feels him more than he hears him when he says, “Holy shit,” breaking the silence that came over them. 

_ Holy shit _ is right, when an entire house just fucking collapsed into a heap, half of it just _ disappearing_, and no one else in this godforsaken town even seems to care, to _ notice_. Richie doesn’t note that, though, because they all know the people of Derry fucking suck, only see what they want to see. He says, “I could use a drink,” and he doesn’t care what time it is. If it’s too early, he’ll have a mimosa.

“Maybe ten,” Mike agrees. He’s somewhere on Richie’s left.

“Good thing we have full access to a bar,” says Bev, “but let’s—we should clean off.”

“You better not be suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” Eddie warns. “That water is _ dirty_, Beverly. I have a fucking _ hole _ in my face. I’m not getting an _ infection _ for old time’s sake. I do not trust the medical expertise of the people of Derry, and I refuse to die here after I survived all that. We are going _ home_.” 

“Home?” Richie asks. 

“The Townhouse,” Eddie snaps at him. “We’re going to the _ Townhouse_. It’s the—it’s the same fucking thing.” 

* * *

They go to the Barrens anyway.

Eddie complains the entire time. 

* * *

No one works at the Townhouse. Richie is convinced this place isn’t even real, like once they leave it, too, will crumble into nothingness and everyone in this stupid town will conveniently forget there was a hotel here. A motel. What is this place?

Bev strips once they enter—because, remember, no one works there—and leaves her shoes at the door. Her socks, wet with water and stained red at the toes, hang off the bannister, and her pants lie in a damp pile by the stairs. She makes no other moves to rid herself of any other clothes and traipses off towards the bar.

Mike huffs a laugh, scrubs his hand over his face. He follows after her and soon the sounds of glasses and ice and bottles fill the silence. 

“Bev, are you _ kidding_,” Eddie shouts, the last one inside. “What, were you raised in a barn? Sorry, Mike.” He bends over and picks up her pants with two fingers, acting like they’re contaminated, and maybe they are, given what’s all over them.

Bev’s giggles are tinkling when they reach him. “Sorry, Eds,” she calls. 

Eddie does not make the same face he does when Richie calls him that, just hums, and collects her things. He yells at her to make him a drink, something _ strong_, I’m going to change my bandage. He does not once look at Richie, even though Richie looks at him.

He stares. 

He waits.

“Trashmouth,” Ben says, “you want?” 

He did. He does.

He waits.

“In a bit,” he answers back, because he doesn’t want to be rude.

Richie feels like he’s thirteen again, waiting for attention, vying for it. He could go towards his other friends, join them like the semi-sane, semi-normal people they are, laugh and drink and toast to the fact that they’ve done it again; they’ve _ survived_. They can wonder if they’ll be allowed to remember this time, if they’ll get to keep this. It’s the right thing to do. It makes _ sense_.

But Richie is rooted to the spot, watching where Eddie disappeared to. It’s the summer of 1989 again; they’ve just made the blood oath. He can feel the phantom sting of it, right there on his palm, even though it’s disappeared. Eddie’s arm is in a cast that says _ LOVER _ and he’s turning away from him, and Richie is just. Richie is standing there, watching, waiting, heart eyes behind his glasses. Something is different. Something has changed. His tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth, but he watches Eddie walk off, back to his mother. He knows he’ll see him—if not tomorrow, eventually this week—but there’s something about _ today_. He needs to talk _ today_. 

He doesn’t.

He waits. 

(He waits too long.)

This time, Eddie reappears. “Are you coming?” 

“You want me to?” Richie asks, even as his feet climb the steps, limit the distance between them. 

“I did just get stabbed in a hotel bathroom,” Eddie replies. “I think I deserve a little supervision on the off-chance someone else from my past tries to murder me.” 

“Aw.” Richie pinches Eddie’s good cheek and jostles it like he’s a seventy-year old grandma on Christmas morning. “Eddie Spaghetti is scared!” 

“I am _ not_,” Eddie retorts, slapping his hand away. “I’m apprehensive. There’s a difference. Logically I know nothing will happen, but the memory of it has me anxious, so would you _ please _ accompany me to the bathroom so I can get this _ thing _ off my face before it gives me a fucking staph infection?” 

Richie finds it so endearing that Eddie is still worried about staph infections. God. “I’ll even apply the Neosporin.” 

“You will do no such thing,” Eddie snaps. “Don’t even think about touching me with those dirty hands of yours.” 

“So you’ll let me touch you if my hands are clean?” 

Eddie’s eyes snap towards Richie’s, brown and wide and exasperated. There’s an eighty-five percent chance he’ll punch him in the face. Richie thinks if he does that, he still won’t forget the way his mouth felt against his, even as his own is bruised from a different thing.

“Don’t hold your breath,” Eddie says.

“If I do, will you—”

“If you say one more thing, Richard, I swear to _ God_,” Eddie warns.

Richie snorts and mimes zipping his lips. He tosses the key somewhere behind him, but produces a second—a spare, if you will—from his pocket, and shows Eddie where to find it. 

Eddie watches him shove it back where it came from, tap on his jeans, and raises an eyebrow. “I will not be needing that,” he says, “but thank you.” 

Richie grins and gives him a thumbs up before following him into his room. It is immaculate, because of course it is, though there is a pile of Eddie’s clothes on the floor by his, like, eight suitcases (_two_). Richie brought a fuckin’ duffle bag with maybe one change of clothes; why does Eddie pack like he’s going on a trip for several weeks? It’s _ Derry_.

He decides to sprawl on the bed while Eddie does whatever Eddie has to do, eyes open for any other escaped convicts they know, which is—Richie thinks it’s none, but you never know these days. His gaze switches between the points of entry to the bathroom door and back. It becomes a question on if Richie is able to physically get up and restrain someone if they _ do _ show up. He’s old now. _ So _ old. He got beat up by a clown, had to outrun a dying house, and then jumped into some freezing water. He has no energy to subdue _ anyone_, much less someone crazy. Eddie should have asked Ben. Ben has _ abs_. Ben definitely knows how to throw a punch, even if he’s dead tired and aches in places he’s not sure he should be aching in.

Then he sees Eddie, just standing there in the doorway, shoulders tense and back uncomfortably straight, and he can suddenly bench press an elephant.

Richie hauls himself up. 

Over Eddie’s shoulder, he sees the bathroom. It hasn’t been cleaned—because A) they were too busy fighting a psychotic clown and B) no one works in this hellhole—so the shower curtain is still on the floor and blood stains the sink, where Eddie was stabbed, and the floor, where Bowers was, all the way to the window, where he made his escape. 

“Hey,” Richie says, “you wanna use mine?”

Eddie swallows. He flexes his fingers, lifts his hand up, tentatively touches his face, like he’s not certain it’s still there. He drops it, and his thumb brushes against Richie’s wrist. If it is intentional or not, Richie is not certain, but he ignores the ringing in his ears and grabs hold of it, squeezing it back. 

“Yeah,” says Eddie. They both pretend they can’t hear the way his voice cracks.

* * *

The sink is wet, and there is day-old toothpaste in the drain, and the medicine cabinet is half-open, like Richie had planned to use it for… for something. His toothbrush isn’t even in there. It’s still in his bag from when he attempted to ditch yesterday. 

Fuck, was it only _ yesterday_?

Richie doesn’t dwell on that. He closes the window, wipes away that toothpaste with his index finger, and uses his sleeve to dry the edge off. He shoulders the the cabinet closed, catches Eddie’s eyes in the mirror, watches him worry his lower lip. He pops a squat on the closed toilet seat, legs spread out on either side of him, and picks at his nails. There’s still some Derry, Maine sewer system unmentionables under them, unable to be cleaned from the lake water, no matter how many times he went under. He’ll shower later. 

Eddie looks behind him every thirty seconds, or so it feels like, and clicks his tongue when he rips the gauze from his cheek. The skin there is red, kind of inflamed, and the dark of his stitches is glaringly obvious. 

He ducks his head, lifts it, looks behind him again. 

“There’s no one there,” Richie tells him. “It’s just me. Any noises you hear are from the others downstairs.”

“Obviously,” Eddie says. He runs the water, checks the temperature, drops his head again. 

Richie watches. Richie always watches. 

It’s methodical, the way Eddie takes care of his wound. He washes his face, taking care to not anger it, pats it dry. On goes the antibiotic cream, rubbed in very carefully with two fingers. He uses his index and his middle for that, his thumb under his chin. Eddie rips apart the gauze with his teeth and smooths the tape to his face. It’s perfect. Eddie should’ve become a goddamn doctor. 

“It was after I got my token,” Eddie tells the mirror. He opens it, closes it. Looks down. “Do you not have toothpaste?”

“I attempted to flee,” Richie explains. “It’s all in my car.”

“Right,” Eddie says. He rifles through his own bag, finds his toothpaste, and it’s not even the travel kind. It is a full tube. Colgate. The kind that fights off plaque or gingivitis. He spreads it on the bristles, wets the brush. “I’m in here. Uh, there. I’m in there, and I’m doing this because I’m covered in vomit, and then there’s that fucking knife in my face. I could feel it between my teeth. Couldn’t even close my mouth.” He bares his teeth, slowly brushes. “And guess what I’m doing the whole time.” 

Richie doesn’t know. “What?” 

“I’m laughing.” Eddie holds his cheek, spits into the sink. “I’m—there’s a knife in my face, and I’m _ laughing_. Ha ha ha, Bowers is here, ha ha ha, Bowers is crazy, ha ha _ ha_.” He brushes the teeth in the back of his mouth now. Richie can see his tongue.

“I killed him,” Richie says. “I. Fuck, I killed him. Just—” He makes a chopping hand motion right in front of him. _Slam. Whoosh._ _Dead._ “Why does Derry’s public library have a weapon in a display case? Shouldn’t shit like that be in a museum?”

“Derry would never open a museum.” Eddie spits again, decides his teeth are clean enough. He rinses off his brush, puts it in one of those little travel cases, and tosses it in his toiletry bag. “What’d they have one for anyway? Nothing happens here except for a lot of unexplained murders.”

Richie opens his palms. “An illustrated timeline of the history of Pennywise the Clown,” he proposes. “Mike and Ben are co-owners. No one goes except us because we’re fucking crazy.” He picks at where that scar should be on his hand. “We can put Stan’s shower caps in there. I’ll donate my flyers. We can get a police sketch artist to make recreations of all the different versions of us I’ve seen in Neibolt.”

“I say we just be glad there was never anything like that in the library when we were teenagers or Bowers would’ve really tried to kill us then.” 

“Do you remember Ben’s stomach?” 

“Yeah, I do,” Eddie shoots back. “Imagine the damage there if he’d used a fucking _ axe_, Rich.” 

Richie’s stomach turns, remembering the axe in the back of Bowers’ head. The blood that pooled around him. How still he’d been. How dead. He tries to equate that to Ben, huge red _ H _ carved into his belly, and gets an image he’s certain will never leave him. “I’d rather not,” he says to Eddie, even as it circulates in his head. Ben: chopped in two. Ben: the legs in the closet, tap dancing. He smacks his lips, runs his tongue over his teeth. He might throw up. 

“Be lucky it was there now,” Eddie says. “Mike’d be dead without you. You did well, Richie. You saved him.” 

“You too,” Richie replies. “You saved me.”

Eddie purses his lips, nose wrinkling. “I don’t think It was going to kill you,” he says.

“The Deadlights were a bitch,” Richie tells him. “You saved me.” 

“You told Bev you didn’t remember them.”

“I don’t.”

“Then how do you know that?”

Richie waves a hand. “I was hovering in the air, Eds. I was staring into a _ bright-ass light_. I don’t even know how long I did that for. I don’t know what that shit does to your brain. I don’t know what’ll happen to me. It was both awesome and awful at the same time. There’s no other way to explain it.” He pauses, meets Eddie’s gaze. “You saved me. Don’t think you didn’t.” 

“So did you,” Eddie whispers. “You saved me.”

“Technically it was Bill,” Richie blurts. “I just made you stay down.” 

Eddie shakes his head. “Before that. Before the sewers, before the clown—you saved me. You always save me.” 

“Eddie,” Richie says, and even he hates the way it comes out of his mouth. 

“I’m done up here.” Eddie crumples the packaging of his gauze in his fist, tosses it in the trash beneath the sink. “I’m ready for those drinks now.” 

Richie blinks. He was wrong to compare that summer day to standing at the staircase, waiting for Eddie to need him. It’s now that’s like watching him turn away from him, into the arms of a mother that would tear him down again and again, her fears ruling over him and her in equal turn. If he doesn’t say what he has to say now, it will definitely be too late. It’ll be over, if he keeps quiet.

He forces himself up, tripping over his feet like he’s just gone through a whole growth spurt. Like he’s a baby deer, unfamiliar with his spindly legs and the current terrain. Maybe he is. He lurches forward, goes to reach for Eddie’s hand, but changes course because he’s not sure. He just knows Eddie cannot leave this bathroom. If he does, that’s it.

He lets his palm fall on his shoulder. The left one. 

Eddie stops.

Richie’s heart ricochets in his chest, bouncing against the walls like it’s just realized it’s trapped in there. “Tonight,” he begins. “Don’t go back to your room.”

“What,” Eddie replies, “and stay here?”

It feels like his tongue is too big for his mouth. “Yeah. Stay here.” _ Stay with me. _

“Okay.” Eddie turns his head, looks at Richie. It’s hard to read his facial expression when Richie’s heart is in his throat. It’s all in the eyes, in the set of his jaw—or at least it is normally, and now Richie can’t make out anything. _ Okay _ is good though. _ Okay _ is not _ no_. “But only because my room looks like a crime scene.” 

“But only,” Richie repeats. 

The corners of Eddie’s lips turn up for—Richie counts—three seconds. It’s enough.

* * *

“You took too long and the ice cubes were melting,” Ben says, a greeting and an explanation for why he drank Eddie’s whiskey. His cheeks are flushed; that could be a result of alcohol or Bev, it’s not quite clear. “Here.” He pushes his own glass, half-empty, down the bar. 

Eddie drops heavily onto a barstool. “What is it?” he asks, inspecting it with a frown. He finds where Ben’s mouth had been and scrubs at the spot with his thumb, like he doesn’t want Captain Handsome’s germs on him or something. 

Richie doesn’t bother with niceties. His entire body is revved up, like they’re about to kill a clown, not like they just did, and he plucks a bottle of—this is—it’s bourbon, okay—from the impressive collection, twists the cap off, and _ chugs_.

It burns as it goes down: one shot, two shots, three shots, four. It clears his head, too, frees him of unnecessary childhood memories, and the thought of Eddie’s mouth on his, of Eddie kissing him_ back_, even though—

“That’s disgusting,” Eddie comments snidely. 

Richie isn’t sure if that’s about him or whatever Ben was drinking. He chooses to go with the former. Ben doesn’t look like he drinks shitty alcohol. His artsy stubble wouldn’t allow it. 

He pulls his mouth away with a _ pop_. “No one works here. No one else is even staying here,” he retorts. “This place is just a fever dream. It’s not real. Let me have this.” He smacks his lips, still wet with bourbon, and Eddie watches him.

Eddie watches him, watches his tongue dart out to lap at the center of his bottom lip, watches him with an odd fascination. Then he clears his throat, nudges a glass across from him, says, “You’re forty years old, Richie, act like it. And use a goddamn coaster.” He slaps one of those down too, a cardboard-type thing all the bars have with a random beer brand splashed across it. This one is dedicated to Blue Moon.

Richie doesn’t want to listen to Eddie, but he feels hot and sticky under all this attention, so he pours himself a hefty portion (definitely more than two fingers), grabs some ice cubes, and places the glass on the stupid coaster. He leans against the bar, elbow pressed to the sticky surface—from him, from them—and cups his chin in his hand.

“So,” he starts, “what else is on our to-do list? Any other old haunts we want to check out on our reunion tour? You think there’s a good horror movie out we can all watch together? Bill, we can go halfsies on a popcorn.”

“I think I’m done with horror movies for a while,” Ben says. “Now, if there’s a good rom-com out, then sure, I’m all in—”

“Rom-com, shom-com.” Richie waves his hand. “Just because you’re hot and got the girl does not mean I’m going to sit through an hour and a half of not-funny—”

“Sorry to disappoint, but your Netflix special is not in theatres, Trashmouth,” Eddie snarks. “Tell me more about how your girlfriend catches you masturbating to her friend’s profile picture, please—” 

“Aw, Eddie Spaghetti memorized one of my jokes,” Richie caws, delighted. “Any others you know? I knew you were a fan. Want my autograph?” 

“No,” Eddie snaps, “but your mom wants _ mine_, so—”

Richie is so fucking pleased he claps his hands together. “He’s funny, guys, he’s funny!”

“One of us has to be,” Eddie blurts, then covers his grin with his glass, finishing off Ben’s drink.

Richie doesn’t realize how hard he’s smiling until Bill shatters the mood. “I’ll have to pass,” he says quietly. “I still don’t have an ending and the duh-duh-director’s going to be pissed I up and left like that. So’s my wife, actually. Fuck. Audra.” 

“It’s only been a day,” Mike assures him. “Two, tops. Tell them you went on a writer’s retreat for inspiration.” 

“Good ol’ Derry,” Richie finds himself saying, though the word _ wife _ circulates in his head like a curse. Eddie has one of those. _ Wife_. Eddie is married. _ Wife_. That can’t be a real word. “The stuff of horrors. I’m sure you could come up with one lickety-split now.” 

Bill shrugs. “I didn’t really explain much, when I left,” he tells them. “Just said I ha-have to go home. Didn’t even apologize for the inconv-v-venience it would cause. Now when I go b-buh-back there’s a whole part of me I kept a secret from Audra, and I’ll have to tell her that, and then there’s the movie…”

“Your endings aren’t that bad,” Bev tells him, laying a hand over his. “If you really don’t want them to change it, don’t let them.”

“Which one is it again?” Eddie asks, because if he’s seen Richie’s stand up, he’s probably read Bill’s books. They’ve all read Bill’s books. 

“_The Attic_,” answers Bill.

Richie thinks on that title, tries to remember if he’s read that one. He knows there’s a couple he has, dog-eared and shoved in a drawer or on a shelf somewhere. They’d reminded him of something when he picked them up. Reminded him of this, though he hadn’t known it yet.

But Eddie’s the one who says, “Yeah, no, don’t keep that ending,” and Richie is laughing so hard he chokes.

Bill smiles in that self-deprecating sort of way of his, because he gets it, people hate how he finishes his books. That’s why Hollywood wants him to change it, why Hollywood has notes, and an ending if he’d just allow it. Bev tries to act all nice and consoling, but when has she ever done that? She doesn’t like his endings either; she said it to his face in the Chinese food restaurant. Mike decides to check the library for it, to make his own educated opinion, and Ben is in the middle of telling them he’ll probably take his boat out for an extended trip, he’ll read the book then, and, Bev, if you’re interested in accompanying me—

“Wait, Mike, you’re staying?” Richie interrupts what was about to be a very romantic proposal, cottoning on to the words he never said. “Come on, man, _ no_.”

“Just for a bit,” Mike tells him. He fishes an ice cube out of his glass, pops it in his mouth. Chews. “I’ve got a lot of cleaning to do. I don’t think anyone would enjoy the serial killer-esque set-up I’ve got above the library.”

“Ah, yes, they may think you’re the thing killing all the kids.” 

Richie means it to be sarcastic, but Mike levels him with a look and says dryly, “In this town, most likely.”

Richie forgot that still, to this day, Mike is one of the only black people living in Derry. No one else would be that stupid (_brave_). 

“And there may be aftershocks or something,” he continues. “I don’t know what happens when you finally kill something like this. They don’t exactly write about it. Maybe there’s stuff leftover. I’ll stay here, hang around a bit, make sure it’s really gone.” 

“Absolutely not,” Bill says, and he’s using that voice again. The one that doesn’t allow for argument. Big Bill, the leader of their ragtag group of losers, who they follow because he’s right, and he’s righteous, and he’s justified. Even as old as they are now, they listen. “You’ve spent your whole life hanging around, _ making sure_. You’re not about to get stuck here for another twenty-seven years, Mikey.”

“No,” Bev agrees. Her voice is small. Sad. “You deserve to get out of here, too. Go to Florida like you wanted.”

“Florida sucks, though, man,” Richie says, though he wants nothing more than for Mike to leave, for all of them to be done with this place. He just loves to push buttons. “Humid. Everyone’s eighty. Alligators.” He shudders. “_Golf_.”

“The Marlins,” Eddie adds.

“The Jaguars. The Dolphins. The _ Buccaneers_.” Richie gestures to Mike with his glass. “These are all sports teams, by the way. There are no pirates in Florida that I know of.” 

Ben shakes his head at him, exasperated in that fond way of people who consider Richie a friend. “We’ll help you clean up,” he tells Mike. “We all leave together, or we don’t leave at all.” 

“Losers stick together,” Bill says quietly.

Richie thinks of Stan. 

* * *

The water stops, the curtain is pulled open, and footsteps block the light from spilling out from under the bathroom door. Richie listens to Eddie hum to himself as he goes about his nightly routine. Wonders very idly if he’ll change his bandage again. Probably. He’ll have to. The old one is wet now, from the shower. He’d hate to sleep with that on; he’ll get something like gangrene or—or—Richie is not up to snuff on his infections, nor does he know what will happen if you leave wet gauze on your face overnight after getting stabbed with a knife. (_The knife was probably not clean, right, where has that knife been? Does Eddie need to take more medicine? Does he need a shot?_) 

He’s never really had to know those things. He’d stupidly thought Eddie’d be in his life forever to remind him. It’s a good thing he never got injured any worse than a few broken toes or had to do anything other than follow simple instructions from the doctor. 

Richie shifts when the door opens, eyes trained to the ceiling. His neck is cold, the pillowcase wet from his hair, washed twenty minutes before Eddie pounded on the door and demanded Richie _ get out, you’re wasting water_. 

The curtains are awful—threadbare pieces of shit that hardly close together to give them any semblance of privacy. Granted they’re on the second floor, but Richie can see a tree right outside the window, and if anyone climbed up that, they’d be able to watch everything that happens here. Richie doesn’t know why he’s thinking about that. 

His gaze follows a bird around on that branch, though. It hops about, tries to settle high up, decides not to. Attempts lower. Doesn’t like it there, either. It gives up entirely, twists its head, looks right into Richie’s soul. Flies off. 

“Gross,” he says out loud.

Stan liked birds. Was a real big bird guy. That was fucking weird. Maybe Stan was sending him some sort of message beyond the grave, and Richie said _ gross_. 

“Sorry,” he says. 

“What?” 

Richie looks from the window to Eddie, standing by the side of the bed, towel in hand. He’s in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, Richie can’t make out the color, and a plain white shirt. 

He thinks maybe he’d understand if he explained why he’s talking to himself like an idiot, but asks instead, “Do you wear pajama sets?”

“No.” 

He squints. “Your wife”—the word is so hard to force out, like it’s physically killing him—“definitely buys you guys matching pajama sets for Christmas.” 

Eddie rubs the towel through his hair one last time, then throws it over a nearby chair to dry. “Doesn’t mean I wear them.”

“So you own pajama sets,” Richie says.

“Sure.” Eddie goes back to standing eerily still by the side of the bed. “Everyone owns a pajama set.”

“I don’t.” Richie wrinkles his nose at the thought. A _ set_. What a waste of money. 

“Yeah, well.” Eddie waves a hand at Richie, already taking up too much space in the bed, sheets pulled to his neck. “Look at you.”

“What’s _ that _ supposed to mean?”

“You’re just not the kind of person who’d own a pajama set,” Eddie says, and he’s right. Richie’d rather die than _ match his pajamas_. What is he, a newborn? Does Eddie have onesies too?

“Maybe the right person hasn’t given me a pajama set yet,” Richie replies plaintively. 

Eddie tilts his head, eyes narrowing. His lips pucker just a bit in his confusion. “Do you often get gifted pajama sets?”

“Only from your mom.”

“For the fifteenth time, Rich, my mother is _ dead_, she’s been dead for _ years_—”

“Maybe that’s what she told _ you_, maybe she finally got sick of your stupid face, maybe she finally realized that _ I’m_—” 

“Finish that sentence, I fucking dare you,” Eddie snaps. 

There is no ending to that joke. Richie hadn’t gotten that far, knowing Eddie’d stop him before he could flounder through a punchline. Not that he needs a punchline; all he needed was Eddie’s flushed cheeks, and there they are: on display for all to see, illuminated by the moonlight filtering through those awful curtains. 

Maybe they’re not so awful now.

“You gonna stand there all night?” Richie asks. “I already checked in the closet and under the bed. No monsters.” 

“Didn’t check _ in _ the bed, then,” Eddie says glibly. “There’s a monster right in front of me.”

Richie slabs a hand to his chest. “You _ wound_,” he whines. “Where’s your fence spike? You know how to kill a monster. Have at it.” He throws his arms out, starfishes in the middle of the mattress. 

“You are not very funny,” Eddie says, sniffing. “An awful comedian. A has-been. A should-not-have-even-_tried_.” 

“Wow.” Richie clicks his tongue. “Tell me how you really feel, Spaghed.” 

Eddie makes a face. “You didn’t get any smaller,” he notes. “Maybe insults are not the end-all be-all when it comes to monster-killing. And will you _ please _ stop calling me that? It makes me feel ten.” 

“Not my fault you’re as tall as a ten-year-old.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? Five-nine is the _ national average_,” Eddie all but yells at him. “You’re just freakishly large! What are you aspiring to be, a basketball player? A Rockette? A _ mountain_?”

A loud slam against the wall on Richie’s right has him shouting, “Sorry, Bev!” She raps her knuckles again in response, light and forgiving. 

“I do love the Christmas Spectacular,” he says to Eddie, lowering his voice. “You think I’d look good in one of those little Santa outfits?” He shakes his legs out from under the sheet, kicks one up, perpendicular to the bed. “I think I can definitely do the can-can, whaddaya say, Eds, should we test this out—” 

He’s whacked in the face with a pillow. He’s whacked in the face with a pillow _ repeatedly_. 

He chokes around his laughter, muffles it by biting down on his lip. He doesn’t want to bother Bev again, or anyone else, for that matter, but having a pillow fight with Eddie Kaspbrak is so fucking funny he can’t help it. 

His arms flail wildly, trying to get the thing away from him. It’s been in his mouth more often than he’d like; it tastes like that stale kind of clean he’s come to expect from this place. The stuff’s been washed, the sheets have been changed, but it’s like it happened months ago instead of before they arrived. The detergent settles on his tongue. He smacks his lips.

Waits.

The pillow comes down again. Richie darts out, grabs Eddie’s wrists, tries to get him to stop, but Eddie’s never been one to roll over like that. He always gave as good as he got, even if he was the one losing. Eddie struggles against him, turning his snort into a cough, and tugs back, trying to dislodge Richie’s hands. His knee digs into Richie, pins the side of his shirt to the mattress, and Richie bucks, trying to get the upper hand. Forget that he’s forty and he’s aching, he needs to win, and if he can get into a sitting position, that should be enough to get—

Richie bats at Eddie’s hands again, pinches the skin between his thumb and index finger hard, and the pillow drops. 

The pillow drops, Eddie’s hands slam against the mattress on either side of Richie, and then Eddie’s hovering over him again, except this time there’s no imminent threat taking a time-out behind him. He is so close their noses brush. Richie gasps involuntarily, gaze roaming Eddie’s face—sparkling eyes, freckles, laugh lines, dumbass bandage, mouth, mouth, _ mouth_—and has the very fleeting thought that he might be a bottom when it comes to him, but that disappears as quickly as it came. 

Eddie blinks, smiles, and Richie is fucking _ wrecked_. 

Eddie says, “Your legs are too hairy for you to look good as a Rockette, dipshit.”

“I’d obviously shave them,” Richie replies, breath thin. “Like I’m a swimmer. My leg will go higher once I do. What’s that called?”

“Streamlining,” Eddie offers up, pulling back. “Aerodynamics? I don’t know. I’m not—I don’t swim like that.”

“Useless,” Richie says fondly. He stretches his body out like a cat: back in the air, arms above his head, feet digging into the mattress. He feels himself crack, sighs a bit, settles back down. 

Eddie’s still on his haunches, hands on his thighs. Richie reaches out and pushes him down. He hands over the pillow once Eddie’s on his side. “That’s how you lie down,” he tells him, “in case you weren’t sure.”

“Sorry.” Eddie shoves the pillow beneath his head, shifts. “I’m not that good at…” He splays his fingers out in front of him, long and thin. “Sharing isn’t… I’m not good at it.”

“You never were,” Richie says, but that’s not true. Not really.

Eddie’d been impatient as a kid, hated waiting, hated not having things right then and there, but when it came to Richie, he could share. Comics. The hammock. Ice cream. Lunch. Bikes, when Richie’d blown his tires—a memory that’s just come to him now.

“I mean,” Eddie says slowly, eyes darting away from Richie. He looks out that window. “Beds. I’ve never shared a—”

“Bullshit,” Richie interrupts.

“Okay, do _ not _ make fun of me,” Eddie hisses quickly. “Just because you have, and it’s, like, a _ normal _ thing for people to do, especially married people, it doesn’t mean there’s anything _ wrong_—” 

Richie shakes his head. He jostles his glasses; they dig into the skin between his eye and ear. “I’m not talking about whatever you and your”—he jerks his hand out, flaps his fingers—“your whatever do. I’m talking—you don’t remember? We’d share a bed all the time as kids, Eds.” 

“I don’t remember _ anything_,” Eddie snaps. “I mean, I remember some things. It’s all trickling back, but it’s coming slowly, so I obviously don’t remember everything, but I think I’d remember if I shared a bed with you—_oh._”

“You still cuddly?”

“I,” Eddie starts, then drops the sentence. His gaze is burning when he looks at Richie. “I wouldn’t know.” 

Richie can feel his heartbeat in his ears. “I guess we’ll just have to find out,” he comments lightly. “I hope you don’t still steal the blankets like you used to.”

“I probably still do that,” Eddie says. He fists the fitted sheet in his hand. Lets go. Fists it again. He looks unsure as he opens his mouth, skin around his eyes crinkling when he frowns. His little forehead wrinkles are endearing. “I kissed you.” His words are slow, like he’s pulling them out of himself letter by letter. “In a bed. Once.” 

_ More than once_, Richie thinks.

“In a hammock, too,” he says. 

Eddie tucks his hands beneath his cheek. Richie bites down on his. “Yeah,” Eddie remembers. “You told me there was a spider in my hair.” 

“There wasn’t.” 

“I know.”

Richie curls his toes in his socks. He has so many things he’d like to say—_would you kiss me now? Should I not have kissed you in the sewer? Do you love me? I love you. I thought for sure it’d work out with us, but I went to college and forgot all about you. How could I forget about you?_—and he says none of them. 

He sits up, removes his glasses, tosses them haphazardly on the nightstand. He fumbles for the sheet he’d discarded, kicked to the bottom of the bed, takes the correct amount for his side, for his body, and leaves the rest for Eddie. Eddie doesn’t touch it. Eddie just stares at him. 

“What are you going to do?” he asks, and it isn’t any of the questions swirling through his head. It’s an important one, though, so he’s not too upset with his traitorous mouth. “After we’ve thrown Mike his going away party. What’s your plan?”

“I’ll have to go home,” Eddie says. Certainly. Surely. Like there is no other option.

And, of course, there isn’t. This is just an unfortunate pitstop in the life of Eddie Kaspbrak, a horror show of a high school reunion. He attended, he saw all the people he’d been friends with, saw how successful and hot (or unsuccessful and not hot) they were, and that was it. He’ll wipe his hands clean of Derry, of the memories that are flooding back, of the uncomfortable encounters with past bullies and awkward reminiscing with his childhood crush. (_I kissed you in a bed once, _for fuck’s sake. _A hammock, too._) He will go home to his wife and his life in New York—that’s where Richie thinks he mentioned living—and he won’t ever think of this place again.

It’s how it is. It’s how it should be.

Richie’s heart sinks anyway. What did he expect? For Eddie to decide he wanted to drop everything and risk it all for Richie fuckin’ Tozier? He didn’t even know he _ existed _ for the past twenty-two years. Who was he kidding? Not everyone was him; not everyone had just. Had _ lies _ and _ loneliness _ and a comedy show that wasn’t even his _ own_. The only fucking person that realized Richie was missing was his _ agent_, and that’s because he bombed so thoroughly last time he was onstage he was hard to forget, and, like, his job was to make sure Richie didn’t end up dead in a ditch somewhere before he could tidy up all his contractual obligations. Of which he probably had none. 

Ben and Bill and Bev and Eddie and _ Mike_, even—they had _ responsibilities. _ They were real-ass adults. They couldn’t just up and _ abandon_— 

“Want to come with?” Eddie asks. 

“Me?”

“No, I’m talking to Pennywise,” Eddie quips. “He’s hiding in the corner.”

Richie jumps, snapping his neck to look behind him. There’s nothing there. 

Eddie snorts. “Relax,” he says. It’s weird to hear _ Eddie _ say that to _ him _ when the Eddie he’s known has always been so neurotic he needed to be calmed down if he saw a mosquito. “Yeah, I’m talking to you. Want to come with me to New York or not, asshole?”

“Uh, sure,” Richie answers. “It’ll be easier to fly out of JFK, I guess.”

“Back to California?” 

“Yeah. It’s where I live.”

Eddie hums. “I gotta do a few things when I’m home,” he tells him. “If you don’t mind waiting around for a bit, d’you think I could tag along?” 

“To California?”

“No, to Wisconsin.” 

“I don’t know if they have layovers in Wisconsin, but I guess we could look.”

“I’m not going to Wisconsin, Rich. You okay? If you don’t want me to come to California, just say so.” 

Richie blinks. “You want—?” He clears his throat, voice cracking. He feels like a teenager again and he doesn’t deserve that. Puberty was awful enough on its own. “I can wait. You planning on taking a vacation?”

“Something like that,” Eddie answers. “It won’t take too long, I promise. You’re welcome to stay in my apartment.” 

“With your…” Richie trails off, squinting at the figure across from him. “Won’t your wife mind? She’s never met me.”

“She’ll just have to get over it,” Eddie says. 

Richie strains his neck to make sure he’s looking at the right person, because those words would literally never come out of his mouth. He spent half this trip defending his weird-ass wife. “Who are you, and what have you done with Eddie Kaspbrak?”

Eddie laughs. “Hey, I killed an unspeakable evil by calling it a stupid fucking clown,” he says. “That changes you, man.”

“Sure does,” Richie agrees.

* * *

Its lair fades into the Derry Townhouse as Richie wakes with a start, a gasping breath escaping him in the form of Eddie’s name. He bites his tongue hard, shuts his eyes, and accounts for all his body parts.

Legs? Check. Arms? Check. Whole body (not suspended in the air, specifically)? Check. Hands? One under his pillow. Check. The other—it’s in Eddie’s. Uh, check?

Richie tries to untangle them before Eddie wakes and notices, his heart beating louder than it did when he pulled himself out of that nightmare. He manages to slip his index finger out, now flush against Eddie’s, in the space where his thumb is. The rest he tries to wriggle out, slow and steady, and he’s almost got it, he’s almost— 

Eddie tightens his hold, mumbles something like _ No_, and snuggles deeper into his pillow. 

Richie slots their fingers back together correctly—it was uncomfortable before—and squeezes Eddie back.

He waits in frozen silence. His poor eyesight makes it hard to see if Eddie ever opens his eyes, if he wakes. He squints anyway, scrutinizing, _ analyzing_, and when there is nothing but the snuffle of his breathing—in through the nose, out through the mouth—he moves. Richie slides closer, _ justthismuchcloser_, _notevenenoughtonotice_, and presses his head hard against the edge of his pillow. He’s almost on Eddie’s. He’s almost _ sharing_. 

And he watches him sleep, just for a moment, a blur of familiarity. His free hand presses softly against his chest, feels his heartbeat, and Richie’s calms significantly, relieved in the fact that Eddie is alive. Breathing. He doesn’t know why he’s worried about that; obviously Eddie is. He’s right here. He’s _ been _ right here. 

Richie slides his hand back under his head. Uses the thumb of his other one to brush against Eddie’s fingers, the ones holding his own. Does it again.

Does it again.

Does it again.

Eddie’s not wearing his wedding ring.

Richie falls back asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time Richie wakes, it’s to Eddie’s finger tracing the shape of his hand. He is tentative, slow, reverent almost; his touch travels up to his wrist, to the bone there, and then back. It’s soothing in that it’s Eddie doing it, but Richie actively has to fight to keep from twitching. It tickles. 

He does not register anything but this for several moments, brain still foggy. The clown had not come back to haunt him in his dreams, thank god, and everything is still hazy in post-sleep. That’s why it takes so long for him to recognize that Eddie is talking, and Eddie is not talking to _ him_. He is up suddenly and instantly, rushed into it, when it clicks. 

“Don’t start this now,” Eddie pleads, soft and kind of desperate. Richie hates that; the sound leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. Reminds him of the times Eddie’d have to beg his mom to _ let me stay out longer, _ and _ we’re not doing anything wrong_, and _ Bill will be there, you like him_, and _ it’s just Richie, what does that even mean? _Mrs. K hated Richie so much it was a wonder she had any energy for anything else. “It’s been two days, not a month, you’re exaggerating again.” He pauses, listens.

Richie can hear his wife, loud and brash and _ annoying_, on the other line. And she’s not annoying in the way that Eddie is: cute and spunky and opinionated. She’s just—and there’s no other word for it, even though Richie knows nothing about her but the sound of her voice—irritating. 

She’s talking responsibilities, _ Eddie’s _ responsibilities, like he doesn’t know, like he’s not an adult on his own. She babbles, too, runs off on tangents that end in conclusions that don’t fit with what she started off saying. She goes from _ come home _ to _ the neighbor’s dog kept me up all night, Eddie, you know how that makes me feel! _

Like, okay? Who cares? 

Eddie attempts to talk to her on four separate occasions, but can never get a word in edgewise. Richie hears him open and close his mouth, sigh heavily. She hears it, too, and makes note of it in the most condescending way. Eddie’s finger speeds up until he’s all but petting Richie’s hand, the pad of it not only leaving his skin hot, but shaking against him, pent up energy going into the mindless task at hand. He probably doesn’t even realize he’s still doing it. 

“I’m coming back tomorrow, probably,” Eddie bursts out, clipped and fast and over-enunciated, like when he was a kid and thought he had to be and do the most to be seen. “Maybe I don’t want to come home tonight, Myra, maybe I want to spend time with my friends. Yes, I know, I’ve never told you about them, I don’t have to tell you everything, I’m allowed to keep things to myself—that’s not what a marriage _ is_, Myra.” This time, as he falls silent, he lets out a loud, irritated breath and doesn’t pretend it’s not what it so obviously is. 

She’s going on and on and on again, and Eddie blurts—no, Eddie _ snaps_, “My friend just _ died_, my friend just _ committed suicide_, I do not have to explain myself to you. I am so _ tired _ of explaining—“ 

She cuts him off with a loud _ your friend_, and that means Stan, and Eddie goes so still and so tense if something were to hit him, he’d snap in half. “Just—just shut up. Be quiet. You don’t know _ anything_,” he says, talking over her, over _ did you just tell me to shut up, Eddie, you know how rude that is! _

He hangs up before she finishes her next sentence and Richie hates the way she tries to make Eddie feel _ bad _ for taking time for himself. For being assertive. For fighting back when she’s trying to guilt trip him. She’s shocked in a way that implies Eddie’s never been like that with her, and it’s baffling that Eddie Kaspbrak—_Eddie Kaspbrak_, who fought back against everything and everyone, who refused to be put in a box once he realized that box was made up and bad for him, who fought a killer fuckin’ _ clown _ and _ won _before he was fourteen—has let her get away with… with walking all over him. 

The phone rings immediately, shrill and loud. Eddie fumbles for it, pulling away from Richie’s hand. Declines it.

She calls again, and again, and again. Five times in three minutes, clearly not pleased with Eddie, and wanting to, Richie doesn’t know, bully him into talking to her. Into submission, maybe. 

Richie’s never known Eddie to let anyone do that to him, not after the placebo thing. Not after It, the first time.

Eventually Eddie says, “Fuck it,” and unlocks his phone. The sound is swift and sharp next to Richie’s ear. After he does whatever he does, he goes back to touching Richie’s hand, and it’s deliberate this time. He flips it over, presses fingertips to fingertips, palm to palm. He brings his fingers in close, towards the center, like he’s about to pinch Richie, then flattens his hand out. He acts like he’s going to hold him, like properly, doesn’t, and brushes his thumb where the blood oath scar used to be. 

“I know you’re up,” he finally comments, light and airy. 

“M’not,” Richie replies. “Still sleeping.” He pretends to snore, an outrageous mockery of the real thing. 

Eddie pinches him for real now. “I know you heard. Go ahead,” he allows. “Make your jokes.” 

Richie opens an eye. “I wouldn’t,” he says. “It’s not my place.” 

“You’re kidding. You make jokes about everything. You make jokes about my _ mother_. _ Now _ it’s not your place?” 

“I,” Richie starts, then stops, snapping his jaw shut. “Do you want me to make a joke?” 

“No,” says Eddie. 

“Then… then what?” Richie asks. He sits up, flings his hand behind him, and tries to search by touch alone for his glasses. He’d put them behind him somewhere, and he’d like to _ see _ Eddie if he’s about to get into this right now. 

He doesn’t make much progress, unless you count sending a surge of pain up his arm to his elbow when he slams against the corner of the nightstand. 

Eddie sighs and leans forward, past him, and he smells good. Like Eddie, and sleep, and mint. He must’ve brushed his teeth when he woke up. Richie’s glasses are haphazardly shoved on his face, lenses slammed right into his eyes. The force of it pinches his nose. 

“Nothing,” Eddie replies. “I just thought you would, since it’s so—” He stops abruptly, doesn’t finish that sentence. Looks closely at Richie, brows pinched. Looks away. Looks back. 

Richie doesn’t know what to say to that, so he remains silent, staring back. The morning light that floods in through the curtains makes Eddie soft around the edges, where he’s now hard and tight, tense from his argument with his wife. 

Wife.

Her name is Myra.

Eddie and Myra Kaspbrak. 

Richie hates it. 

“Bet it was hard to explain to her why you needed to come back here,” Richie finally says. “I can’t imagine having to do that. Did you even remember you grew up here?”

“Not here specifically,” Eddie replies. “I knew I grew up in Maine, but I never knew I grew up here. I always said just _ Maine _ when anyone asked.” He gnaws on his lower lip. “Your… your girlfriend didn’t mind when you just—when you said you had to go?”

“Girlfriend?” Richie parrots. 

Eddie nods. “You know, with your stand up act, you said that your girlfriend… she hated…” 

Richie blinks. “My… oh. _ Oh_. I don’t. Uh. I don’t have a girlfriend. That’s literally someone else’s joke. That happened to someone else. Not me. I don’t tell my own jokes, and I don’t have a girlfriend.” 

“Fake jokes, fake girlfriend,” Eddie muses, perking up just enough for Richie to notice. “What’s real about you?” 

Richie could say something stupid like _ my dick_, or something sad like _ I don’t know,_ or something wise like _ is anyone even real, be honest._ He doesn’t. He says, “Nothing. You, maybe. You’re putting all the pieces together.”

He doesn’t tell him he’s started to feel whole again, here in Derry. Doesn’t tell him that despite the return of the killer clown, this is the most _ Richie _ he’s felt in years. That the pieces of him that’ve been jagged and torn apart are stitching themselves back together and smoothing themselves out with every second he spends here. He doesn’t say, _ I’m glad the clown came back because I came back with it. Because it gave me you again. _

It’s dumb. It’s romantic. It’s making Richie hot, just thinking about it. Eddie has a wife. Eddie’s married. Eddie has a life beyond Richie. 

And the way Eddie is looking at him now, like Richie is the thing he knows both everything and nothing about, he wishes he could take it back, but like always, Trashmouth wins. He should wear a muzzle. 

“I get it,” Eddie says. “I think I feel the same.” 

“Do you think we’ll forget again once we leave?” 

Eddie sucks on his lower lip as he thinks. Richie watches him do it, the way he holds it between his teeth. The pink of it. “No,” he says finally, with certainty. “I don’t think we will.” 

“How do you know?” Richie asks. 

“I don’t,” Eddie admits. “I only know that I don’t think it is possible for me to forget you a second time. I don’t think my body will allow it. I think it will physically revolt.” 

“Mine too,” agrees Richie. 

His gaze rakes over Eddie, committing him to memory now, like he’ll never see him again. He’ll fight that magic if it tries to take him again. He’ll stubbornly remember Eddie: his face, his hair, his eyes, the slope of his nose. The eyebrows and the freckles. The way he smiles, kind of crookedly. The fire that takes over him when he’s fighting back, whether it be a real threat or the kind of shit he and Eddie regularly get into with each other. 

He wonders how he managed it the first time when, right now, his heart is threatening to burst from his chest just by looking. It doesn’t seem possible to have written Eddie out of existence the way he did. There is no one else like him; there will never be anyone like him. 

Richie loves him. He loves him, he loves him, he loves him. It’s upsetting to think that there is a stronger magic than that out there. 

Then again, maybe it wasn’t so strong. Richie thinks there’s been an Eddie-shaped hole in his heart all these years, just waiting for him to fill it again. 

* * *

They find out that someone actually _ does _ work there at around eleven when there’s a double knock on the door and the knob jiggles. _ Housekeeping_, the voice says. 

Eddie turns to look Richie. “Oh my _ god_,” he blurts, fast and horrified, “do you think she cleaned my _ bathroom_?” 

* * *

And that’s how Richie finds himself on his knees—and not in the fun way. 

His shoulders hurt from the strain of scrubbing his toothbrush—Eddie had _ balked_, but Richie could just, you know, buy another one—between the tiles, removing not only blood, but also what seemed to be years of dirt buildup. It made Richie nauseous just looking at the bristles, but he merely dunked the brush into the water solution, cleaned it off as best he could, and went at it. Maybe Eddie did have a point about dirt, but don’t tell him he thought that.

Eddie’s wiping off the sink, the smell of bleach filling the room and making Richie’s head spin. He’d stolen that, Eddie had; he’d nicked it right off the cleaning lady’s cart, along with two pairs of disposable gloves. Richie’s were thrown off to the side. 

Richie sits up, wipes the sweat from his brow, and takes a breath. Not only does his upper body ache, but his fingertips sting, and he’s certain his hand will be stuck in the position it’s in for the rest of time. He bends them, tries to get his blood flowing again. It’s kind of useless.

So he watches Eddie. He’s good at watching Eddie. He’d never been very subtle, but he’d make some sort of crude joke about him to ease the tension, to make it seem like he wasn’t just staring to _ stare_, even though he was. 

It’s how he knows that Eddie is panicking, if it weren’t obvious already. His arm moves furiously, sponge sliding over the lip of the sink to the drain to the faucet. He repeats these jerky movements, cleaning, cleaning, _ cleaning_, but there is no blood there. Not anymore. He got rid of it.

He won’t look in the mirror, either. Every time he does, he jumps like he’s expecting Bowers to be behind him, giggling madly. Bowers is dead. Richie killed him. Bowers isn’t coming for him. 

“Eddie,” Richie starts, slow and steady as not to scare him off, “it’s clean enough.” 

Eddie blinks, looks up, straight into the mirror, blanches, and then turns around. “No,” he says. “It’s still dirty.” Somehow his cheeks are flushed even as he loses all color everywhere else in his face. 

Richie hears it as _I’m still dirty _ and stands up. 

Gently, as to not startle, he tugs the sponge out of Eddie’s grip. Eddie tries to reach for it, but he doesn’t let him, shoving it into his pocket. Eddie’s body is so tightly wound up, so straight, that when Richie runs his hands up his arms, he can _ feel _ the tension brewing inside him. Can feel the panic. Eddie’s fingers twitch. 

“You’re fine,” Richie whispers. He squeezes him, thumbs at his collarbones, the rest against his shoulders. “It’s clean. You’re fine.” He moves up, cups his cheeks, makes Eddie look at him. “The blood is gone. Bowers is gone. There is nothing there. There is no knife. Unclench your jaw.” 

Eddie’s fingers are shaky while he hooks them through Richie’s belt loop, anchoring himself to him and this moment, his gaze burning all the while. Richie feels as if he could see straight into him, straight through him, but does not break the eye contact. Does not take his hands from his face. He’ll be whatever Eddie needs him to be until this passes. 

(He used to hold his face all the time like this, whenever Eddie got overwhelmed or afraid, whenever things became too much. It’s easy to fall back into that.) 

Eddie breathes sharply through his nose. Swallows. Opens his mouth enough that Richie can see his tongue and the bottoms of his two front teeth. He moves his jaw to the right and left, like he’s trying to crack it. Something dims in the brown of his eyes, something lessens, and then he’s surging forward, sloppily grabbing at the back of Richie’s neck, kissing him. 

It’s about as messy as one can expect, more of a fight than anything else. Eddie’s pulsing with energy again, the same way he’d been earlier, when he was on the phone with Myra, though it’s different. It’s less contained, less aware of itself. And the way Eddie is pressing up against Richie, trying to mold their bodies into one… it’s almost as if he thinks it’ll go away, he’ll feel better, if he can get every one of his cells to touch him. 

He bites down on Richie’s lower lip, breaks the skin. Blood explodes in his mouth, hot and tangy, and their teeth clash together. 

Richie lets him take what he wants, what he needs, and he is not so selfless that he does not do the same, tilting his head and pursuing. But he does slow down, after a while, takes his hands from his cheeks, puts them on his shoulders. He pushes softly, pulls his mouth from Eddie’s, and ignores the pitter-patter of his heart when Eddie tries to follow him backwards, tries to take it back. 

“Eddie,” he says. “_Eddie_.” 

“What,” Eddie snaps. His pupils are blown; he’s not even looking Richie in the eye, just staring at his mouth. His chest heaves. 

“Your wife,” Richie reminds him. The mere thought makes his chest ache. The fact that he has to say this? That he’s being the bigger person? He kind of wants to die. “You shouldn’t… you can’t—”

“Don’t want my wife,” Eddie tells him. “Want you.” 

Fuck if that doesn’t make Richie’s blood _ sing_. And still he has to fight against it, because he’s not going to do this to her, and he’s not going to do this to himself. “But she—” 

“I’ve been looking for you this whole time and didn’t even realize it,” Eddie continues on, like he hasn’t heard him. Maybe he hasn’t. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe they were always supposed to end up here, like this. “And now I found you. Don’t you want me too?” 

“Yeah,” Richie croaks. Clears his throat. “I mean, yes. Obviously. I do. I want you too.” 

“Then have me,” Eddie says. 

“In the bathroom?” Richie asks. He makes the mistake of chewing on his lip. It stings. “Everything smells like bleach.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, tugs his gloves off, and fists the front of Richie’s shirt. “I don’t care,” he says. “I’m not going back to her. I took one look at you in Jade of the Orient and I knew there was no way in hell I was going back to anything or anyone unless it was you.” 

His heart has torn itself out of his chest. It’s ricocheting around, trying to run, trying to leave, trying to find its way into Eddie’s hands. _ I’m not going back to her_, he said. _ I’m not going back to her. _

_Want you. _

God, how is it possible to feel this strongly after all this time? 

“Eddie,” he mumbles weakly, tongue suddenly too big for his mouth. Throat too dry. There’s dirt and dried blood—Eddie’s? Bowers’?—under his nails. 

“_Richie_,” Eddie shoots back. “I swear to God, if you don’t fucking kiss me right now, I will—” 

Richie doesn’t stick around to find out the threat. He ducks his head, presses their foreheads together, and says, “I’m not doing this in a bathroom. Especially not one you got stabbed in.” 

“S’clean enough,” Eddie retorts. 

Richie laughs. “We haven’t even gotten to the shower yet.”

“You wanna do it in the shower?” 

“No,” replies Richie, spluttering when Eddie slips his hand in the back pocket of his jeans. “We have to clean it. There’s still blood there.”

Eddie looks around him, considers it. He clicks his tongue. “It’s fine. We just need to throw out the shower curtain. It’s ripped in two.” 

“Very unlike you to stop worrying about a bacterial problem,” Richie muses. “We’re not doing this right now.” 

“Later?” 

“Later,” Richie promises, booping his nose with his own, “after you’ve tied up your loose ends. You can have me any way you want.” 

Eddie deflates, looking put out, and untangles himself from Richie. “Fine,” he grumbles, “but you get to clean that shower since you’re so adamant about it.” He crosses his arms and leans his back against the sink, looking so much like his younger self it makes Richie’s heart hurt. 

“Your wish is my command, my liege,” Richie teases. He leans forward and lays a quick, gentle kiss to the corner of Eddie’s mouth. “To remember me by.” 

“Ugh.” Eddie flicks him in the collarbone. “At least mean it if you’re going to be a dick about it.” 

Richie grins and gets close again, watching as Eddie’s eyes flutter shut, and then he’s kissing his cheek. His nose. His forehead.

“_Richie_!” 

“Well, if you’re going to whine about it…” 

Eddie stomps on his foot.

Richie runs his fingers through his hair, cups his jaw, and kisses him, soft, certain, and warm, right on the mouth. Eddie sighs, opens up under him, and presses back. It’s lazy and it’s slow and Richie gives in right there, even though he’d really been serious about not doing anything until Eddie was no longer tied down. One hand curls around the sink behind him while the other pushes at his chin, angling Eddie’s face for better access to his mouth. 

Eddie’s got some thing with his belt loops, it seems, because he’s tugging on them again, bringing Richie flush to his chest, and it is this scene that Bev walks into when she finds them. 

“Oh,” she says, and she doesn’t even sound surprised. “We were wondering what you guys were up to. We’re thinking brunch.”

Richie catches her eye in the mirror as he pulls away, sees his own reflection: face flushed, lips swollen, redder than usual because Eddie fucking mauled him. Bev merely smirks, looking ethereal in the doorway. 

Eddie replies, “We’re cleaning the bathroom.” 

“Looks like it,” she comments. “Cleanest bathroom I’ve ever seen.” 

She’s so full of shit. The bathroom looks worse now than it did before, which is saying a lot considering the amount of blood that’d been left to dry overnight. There’s still an alarming amount by the tub, where Eddie got Bowers good in the stomach. Pieces of shower curtain are flung in a line towards the window Bowers jumped from. A handprint remains in perfect shape on the glass, red and almost looking like a Halloween decoration.

As much as Eddie knows about cleaning a variety of stains, they’ve only managed to clean the sink (very thoroughly, Richie has to say; he doesn’t remember it looking this nice when they checked in) and the tile right in the middle of the room. It’s a train wreck. The fact that Eddie wanted to make out with him in here truly puts his sanity into question, but they’re all a little bit crazy these days, aren’t they?

“We have a lot more to do,” Eddie concedes. He pulls at Richie again, impatient and wanting. He has no intention of finishing up despite his mad dash to get here before the lone worker made it, shoving the _ Do Not Disturb _sign on the doorknob so hard he ripped it. 

He’s so stupid (_cute_).

“Uh huh,” Bev says. “Want some help?”

“No,” says Eddie. “It’s my mess. I’ll clean it.” 

She snorts in a very delicate and ladylike sort of way and winks at Richie. “Ten minutes,” she orders. “I’m starving.” 

“Go without us,” Eddie suggests. 

“Nope,” she replies. “It’s the last meal before we split again.” 

“A Losers Luncheon, if you will,” provides Richie. 

“I won’t,” says Bev. She checks her watch. “Nine minutes now.” 

* * *

The meal goes off without a hitch, specifically without any mutant sausages or rotted eggs Benedict, and it feels very much like the start of their last dinner did. There’s fun; there’s banter; there is no looming threat. Mike is not about to drop the world’s biggest bomb on them. They split what feels like five pitchers of mimosas, offer up truly disastrous endings for Bill’s movie, and if anyone notices how close Richie and Eddie sit to each other, no one says a word about it. 

Cleaning Mike’s apartment, though—that’s a little bit messier, but only because he has so many things. He’s turned into a hoarder, gathering clues for his freelance supernatural detective work.

“You _ do _ look like a serial killer, not gonna lie,” Richie says. He gestures grandly to the _ Missing _ posters Mike’s got a collection of. 

Eddie shucks newspapers into a blue recycling bin because of course he’s worried about recycling years’ worth of trauma. “Reminds me of Ben’s room that one time.” 

“Oh my god, because he was a little nerd!” Richie remembers, pointing. “You were, like, obsessed with the history of Derry.” 

“I was new,” Ben defends. “I had no friends. It was interesting.” 

“It was in no way interesting,” says Richie. “You looked just like this.” 

“It was helpful,” Bill says quietly. “It helped with…” He clears his throat. “It helped with Juh-Georgie. I couldn’t have done it without you, Ben.” 

Ben smiles, cheeks pink, and they all fall silent for a moment, thinking of their two casualties. Of Georgie, in his yellow raincoat, and Stan, in the tub. Of the people and the things that were stolen from them.

Richie looks around at all of them, wondering what he’d remember if he’d been allowed, wondering what memories he could have made with these guys, with his _ people_, had they all been able to keep their friendships after they left this town. Will what they’ve already experienced together come back to him ever, or will it be blank and empty for the rest of his life?

Then Bev unearths something holding up another stack of papers, definitely just an ugly paperweight, and asks, “You steal this from the Native Americans, too?” 

The moment breaks. 

* * *

There’s the small—practically teeny, incredibly miniscule—issue of the dead body they have to deal with next.

The contents of Richie’s stomach from two days ago has settled into the floorboards, has mixed with the brown-red blood all around Bowers. The axe is still embedded in him, sticking out of his back. Clearly no one else works at this library, or even attempted to check out a book, or else this place would be sanctioned off, bright yellow police tape marking it as a crime scene.

Bill takes one look around—broken glass, clear sign of struggle, and all that blood—and pales. He’s probably assaulted with memories from Georgie’s death, though he was never there to see the carnage. As a horror writer, though, he’s looked deep into the kinds of shit that makes you cringe, makes you cry, and now he can attribute all of that to his kid brother. To this. Can imagine it worse than it actually was.

Because Richie—Richie’d just seen Mike wriggling on the ground, Bowers on top of him, ready to kill him, because why not, and he’d—

Richie dry heaves. The champagne in his stomach churns uncomfortably. He can taste the pancakes he’d devoured (chocolate chip, smothered in syrup, topped with strawberries) and the hash browns he’d stolen off Eddie’s plate (too greasy for the great Edward Kaspbrak, who’d chugged two mimosas in quick succession). He slaps a hand over his mouth, tears his gaze from Bill (wrecked), from Bowers (murdered), from the floor (disgusting), and stumbles over his feet as he backs up (runs away).

He trips into the display he’d smashed (no thoughts, just action). His free hand goes to balance himself (bad idea) and he gets shards of glass stuck in his palm (the tiny ones, the ones you can hardly see). He doesn’t feel it (it stings), just replays the axe over and over and over (a movie), watching it all happen again as if he’s a mere bystander and not the fucking perpetrator (murderer).

“Honey,” Bev says.

He looks up (blue eyes, red hair). “Molly Ringwald.” It’s stale in his mouth (bad joke).

Bev’s hand is on his back, his hair (comforting, but not enough). “Deep breaths,” she advises. “Slow breaths.”

He holds her gaze (unwavering, friendly, love, love, love), but finds he can taste his own snot in the back of his throat (gross). The images continue on behind her, but he remembers her not being there. Remembers him and Mike and Bowers, and then everyone else showing up except Bill (where is Bill?). He swallows. His body spasms.

“I’m taking him outside,” Eddie decides. “We’re going for a walk.”

“Take him back to the Townhouse,” Ben tells him. He’s pushed his sleeves to his elbows (such corded forearms, so much muscle. Ben used to be fat?), looking like, he doesn’t know, every girl’s western cowboy wet dream (Bev seems to like it). “We’ll take it from here.”

(Take what?)

Bev shares a look with Ben (heated, there’s a lot there, but there’s always been a lot there) and smiles. He returns it (crooked, lovesick, patient), nods. Bev says, “I’ll come with.”

Mike unearths a shovel (probably from another display case), leans against it. He looks like a farmer (he looks like the kid he used to be). Bill says something to Eddie, something like _distract him. No more alcohol. Food, maybe._ Mike adds, _sleep, too_, like he’s not just as frazzled to be here as Richie is (maybe more, he almost got killed, would have been dead if not for Richie).

Eddie snarks back (_I know how to take care of Richie_).

Bill raises a brow (_do you?_).

Ben shoves his hands in his pockets (_let’s get going already_).

Bev is on one side of him, Eddie the other, and they walk him out of the library (he never wants to see another library again). Eddie clicks his tongue, inspects the glass in his hand (only in the heel of his palm). His fingers tremble as he brushes over the skin, jaw tense in the way that implies he’s remembering a knife in his face (stupid Bowers).

They do not take him back to the Townhouse. They go get ice cream.

Bev takes their orders, Richie sits down, and Eddie disappears to the drugstore. When he returns, he’s got his arms full of medical supplies (gauze, and tape, and peroxide, and wet wipes, and tiny things of Advil, Motrin, Tylenol).

“You should run a pharmacy,” Richie decides. He feels much better away from that library, stomach settled, and holds his hand out when Eddie gestures for it.

“I already have more than that place does in my toiletry bag,” mutters Eddie. He picks the pieces of glass out with sharp tweezers. They pile up on a napkin between the three of them.

“Do you still use a fanny pack?” Richie asks, studying the crease between Eddie’s brows.

“No, I’m almost forty, not twelve,” Eddie returns. He looks past Richie, though, at the wall behind him, like he’s considering the question. “Though maybe I should start again, if you’re going to get injured every twenty seconds.”

“I don’t really plan on it,” Richie says. “You had two fanny packs.” It’s a memory he adds as an afterthought. He feels stupid saying it out loud.

Eddie nods, jerking his head up. “I carried a lot of things. A lot of bullshit.”

(He carried Richie’s heart in there, too, Richie thinks. It wasn’t all bullshit.)

Richie looks from his face to his hands. To the tweezers, and the glass, to the napkin, stained red, just a little bit. He grasps for his plastic spoon (blue), digs into their ice cream (vanilla), says, “Open your mouth.”

Eddie does.

Richie feeds him.

Eddie smacks his lips, uses the tweezers. His hands don’t shake when he’s working on him. 

Richie licks ice cream off the spoon, gets another huge glob, offers it to Eddie again. Eddie takes it. After a while, he just starts tapping Richie’s wrist when he wants more, and Richie spoon-feeds him.

They do this until they run out. They do this even after Eddie can use both his hands, Richie’s bandaged tightly. Bev buys them more.

The three of them sit in the parlor, fully grown adults, eating their weight in ice cream. Their second cup has rainbow sprinkles. The third has chocolate syrup. Bev never shares hers, continuously filling it with pistachio and bits of cookie dough.

Ben, Bill, and Mike file in after a while, the bell on the door chiming over their heads as they enter. Richie can almost pretend Stan is behind them, and they’re twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, avoiding their homework and hanging out in the corner. The girl who’d worked here, he forgot her name, she had a crush on Bill. They always got ice cream for free when he was with them.

“You smell very clean,” Eddie says around the spoon. He’s got chocolate dribbling to his chin. He tries to swipe it with his tongue.

“We are very clean,” Ben agrees. The backs of his hands are scrubbed red and raw, his fingertips pruned. His knuckles look almost bloody, like he’d washed them so vigorously he sliced open skin.

Bev looks at his fingernails (there is no dirt) and offers up her snack. Ben takes a new spoon, the one originally for Eddie that he never bothered with, and digs in.

Mike comes back with a cone (definitely not sharing) and three scoops of butter pecan. “I think I’m about ready to move,” he tells them, pulling the seat out on Bev’s other side.

“Everything packed?” Bev asks, because she’s good with codes. She always has been.

Richie takes the spoon back from Eddie, swirls it in their treat, mixing it into a cold soup. He wants to ask, but he won’t. Can’t, really. He’s afraid if he tries to speak he’ll say the wrong thing.

“Every last bit,” Mike replies. “I had to toss a few things and I have some clothes for donation, but all that I need—it’s ready. I’m ready.”

Eddie takes the plastic utensil from Richie’s grasp, piles it high, and coaxes it into Richie’s mouth. He’s but a puppet for him now, doing as instructed, and chocolate and vanilla explode on his taste buds. He meets Eddie’s eyes, brown and deep and understanding, and stops wondering where they buried the body, what they did, how they coped, if they’re mad at him for ditching when he’s the one who offed him.

Eddie smiles, and there’s that dimple in his cheek.

The ice cream makes his teeth hurt, it’s so cold, but suddenly he is not thinking about Bowers. He’s not thinking about anything (anything he wants to share). 

* * *

Richie pulls Bev into a hug, allowing her warmth to cool the nervousness crawling up his spine. “Are you worried you’ll forget?” he asks her quietly. “Even though you’re going with him, are you—do you think you’ll just wake up and wonder who he is?” 

“No,” she says. She presses her cheek to his and kisses the skin by his ear. “It feels different this time. Permanent.” She looks over her shoulder at where Ben and Mike are hugging, slapping each other’s backs. “Besides, I don’t think I’ll ever just forget Ben, you know? I remembered how that poem made me feel all these years.” 

“That’s different,” Richie insists. “That’s a feeling. That’s not a person. You didn’t remember Ben.” 

Bev turns back to him. “But I did remember him, didn’t I? Maybe not physically, sure, but when I saw him again, it was like my entire body went _ oh, it’s you. It’s always been you. _ As cheesy as that may sound.” 

He wants to pick fun at her, you know, because damn, that was the most nauseating thing he’s ever heard, up there with whatever that _ Wuthering Heights _quote about souls is. It’s there, the joke he can make, but he takes one look at Eddie, nodding seriously at whatever Bill is saying, brow pinched and squeezing his bottom lip, and blurts, “No, I think I know what you mean.” 

He sees Eddie and he sees _ home_. 

Bev takes his hand and squeezes it. “If this experience was good for anything,” she says, “it’s the opportunity for second chances.” 

“It’s a shame Stan didn’t get one,” Richie murmurs. 

“Stan never needed a second chance. He was whole already.” 

Richie sighs, throws his arm around her, and tucks her into his side. She leans against him, the two of them ruminating in all of that. “Bev Marsh,” Richie muses, “why are you always the first to go?” 

She pinches the skin above his elbow. “It’s easier to walk away than it is to watch you all go,” she replies, honest and bare. “But it’s not forever, you know? I’m expecting you at Ben’s within the next three months.” 

“Oooh,” Richie replies, “got some interesting plans up your sleeve?” 

“I just don’t want it to be another twenty years without you,” she murmurs. “It was hard enough missing something I couldn’t remember, but if I get to keep this… if we really get to remember each other this time, I don’t want it to fizzle because we’re all scattered across the country.” 

He hip-checks her. “Can’t lose me twice, Marsh.” 

“I’d make a joke about trying to, but I don’t want to.” 

“You’ll make it eventually,” he reasons. “Soon the wound will heal and you’ll wish you could be rid of the Trashmouth.” 

Bev laughs. “Somehow I don’t think that’ll ever be the case.” Ben waves her over, points to the car with his thumb. It’s time for them to go. Richie’s heart sinks. “Behave, Rich,” she says to him, pressing another kiss to his cheek. “He’ll be good for you. He always was.” 

* * *

(Four.) 

* * *

Mike’s taking the scenic route to Florida, so they cram suitcases into the back of his truck, and fast-talking Eddie shoots off suggestions of cities to visit, places to stay, restaurants to eat at along the way. It’s like he’s a world traveler or something, the way he’s going on. Richie adds in his two cents of places _ not _ to see, things _ not _ to do. Florida is number one on his list, why does Mike want to go _ there_, and Bill slaps him in the back of the head. 

Bev texts in a group of the six of them _ boarding now! Here’s to new experiences xoxox _and attaches a picture of Ben sucking down what looks like a mocha frappuccino from Starbucks as he waits in line. 

Bill snorts, and he’s the one to text back _ is that part of the Ben Handsome-approved diet? _

Ben sends the middle finger emoji, then _ I really thought that’d come from Richie. _

_Nah_, Richie types out, _ please get ugly. _ Ben emphasizes it with a heart. 

Mike says, out loud, “If I leave now, I should be able to make it to Boston before nightfall.” 

“I like Boston,” Richie says. “See the Sox play if you’re staying there. Fenway’s fun.” 

“Eat the seafood,” Eddie adds. “There’s this bar out there, too, I can’t remember the name of it, though, but I really liked it when I was there. I’ll text it to you if it comes to me.” 

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Mike says, literally saluting. 

He hugs them all in turn, ruffles Eddie’s hair like he used to, and then they’re all waving him off, watching the best of them finally clean his hands of this awful place. 

* * *

(Three.) 

* * *

Bill’s flight is scheduled to leave the next day, just like Richie and Eddie’s, so he accompanies them back to the Townhouse, where they all pay extra to spend another night. Eddie manages the reservations at the front desk and takes Bill’s card when he offers to pay for it all.

“No,” Richie says immediately. “You don’t have to do that.” 

“It’s literally, like, fifty dollars for another night, it’s fine,” Bill argues. “Buy me coffee tomorrow.” 

“For fifty dollars?” Richie shoots back. “How much coffee do you need to go back to Hollywood?” 

Bill lifts a brow, slaps his wallet closed, and says, “Starbucks is expensive, Richie.”

“What the hell Starbucks are you going to?” 

“I don’t just go to one,” says Bill.

“Yeah, obviously, if you’re getting fifty dollars’ worth of coffee.” Richie makes a face. “I’m nauseous just thinking about it.”

Bill pats him on the back. “Good thing you’re not the one drinking it, then.” 

“There is something considerably wrong with you,” Richie decides, squinting at him like he can find the problem. He can’t. Bill is as perfect as always. 

“My kid brother was killed by a clown that lived in a sewer,” Bill says, deadpan. “That may have something to do with it.” 

“Holy shit.” Eddie appears at Richie’s shoulder, who delights in the height difference. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over it. “What a mood killer. To think I was gonna ask if you wanted to get pizza.” 

“I can always eat pizza,” Bill tells him. “Eat out or order in?” 

Eddie wrinkles his nose. “I hate this place,” he murmurs, looking behind him to check the woman at the desk didn’t hear him. They’ve never seen her before, so that makes two workers here when two days ago there were none. He offers her a forced smile. She blinks, uninterested. The service here is astounding. 

“Out it is, then,” Richie decides. “You think they still have that pizzeria we used to go to? The one with the—” 

“The really good meatballs? We can check. You remember where it was?”

“Nope.” 

“The name?”

“Also nope.” 

“The street, maybe?” 

Richie shrugs. “I think it was near the arcade.” 

“No,” Bill disagrees, “that was the ice cream place.” 

“It was definitely the pizzeria,” Richie says. “We used to get ice cream over by the—oh, no, wait, there _ was _ an ice cream place by the arcade. Maybe the pizzeria was by the movie theatre.” 

Eddie’s gaze swivels between them, back and forth and back and forth, like he’s watching a tennis match. He heaves a heavy sigh. “You know you can just Google it, right?”

“What am I supposed to Google, Eds? _ Derry good meatballs_? Who knows what’ll come up if I do that.” 

“Okay, then ask Paulette.”

“Who’s Paulette?” 

“The woman at the counter,” Eddie answers. “She may know. She lives here.” 

Richie frowns deeply and pulls his phone out. “Google it is,” he says, and he does, in fact, type in _ Derry good meatballs_, but he also adds _ pizzeria _because he’s not stupid. “Hey, where are you going?” he calls to Eddie’s retreating back. 

The search takes eons to load. The wifi in Derry is shit. 

“Gotta move my bags into your room,” he says. He’s almost at the foot of the stairs. 

“Why?” Richie asks. 

“Only paid for two rooms,” Eddie answers. 

Richie makes a sound, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with this action, merely acknowledging it, and goes back to trying to prod his phone into moving faster. He hears Eddie clomp up the stairs, feels Bill’s stare on his cheek. 

“Your room, huh.” Bill does not raise it as a question. It is a statement. It is an observation, but like Bev he is not thrown by it. 

“He got stabbed in his,” Richie replies. “I imagine it would be traumatic to sleep in there.” 

“I bet. Did he sleep in there last night?” 

Richie looks up. “No.” 

“Is this what you want?” 

“No, I want to find out where the good meatballs are,” Richie retorts.

“Rich,” Bill says, and he asks again. 

“Yeah,” he answers seriously. “It’s what I want. It’s what I always wanted.” He swallows; it’s rough because his throat is dry. His gaze lifts to the ceiling, like he can see Eddie through it, watch him drag his two suitcases across the hall. He should’ve helped him. He packed too much for his own good. “If we were able to keep our memories, I think I already would’ve had it.” 

Bill’s got this smile on his face that makes Richie itchy, so he looks away to thumb through the results of his Google search. “What’s your plan?” Bill asks.

“We’re going to New York,” Richie answers. He toggles between two restaurants, neither of them ringing any bells, and presses on the menu for the first. There’s a cartoon chef in the corner, holding an enormous pizza box. “Eddie’s gonna do some stuff there, then we’re off to Los Angeles.” He exits out of that website and opens the next, which has the name of the restaurant in elegant, scripted font. They’d never have gone somewhere with a menu presented like that. He leaves it immediately. “Maybe I’ll write my own material. I’m sick of pretending to be someone else.” 

“You’re funnier than those jokes anyway,” Bill tells him. “I think your sense of humor kept as all sane when we were back there. Without you to ease the tension, I don’t—” 

“Aw, Big Bill, you think I’m funny,” Richie deflects, cutting him off before this turns into a _ Moment_. “Do you think it was Mario’s? Or was it Gino’s? We definitely did not go to however you pronounce this word in Italian.” 

Bill nudges him, his hand a shock on Richie’s shoulder as he shoves. “Of course I think you’re funny,” he says. “You’ve always been funny. Write your own shit. You’re better than stale masturbation jokes.” 

“Am I, though?” Richie asks. “But really, do you remember it being Mario’s or Gino’s?”

“I remember shit-all about the food establishments here,” Bill answers. “And yes, you are better than that.” 

“I’m calling Mike.” 

“He’ll—for—he’s driving.” 

“He can pull over,” Richie says. “He’ll know the answer to this.” 

He finds Mike’s number in his Recents list, makes a mental note to save it to his contacts, and brings the phone to his ear. Mike is predictable, as always, and picks up after the first ring. “Richie?” he asks, voice kind of tinny and far off. He must have the phone connected to the car Bluetooth. “Do I need to turn around? Is It not dead? I knew we should have been more diligent—”

“No,” Richie says. “Worse. I can’t remember the name of the pizzeria with the meatballs.”

The phone clicks in his ear as Mike hangs up on him. 

Richie stares, mouth agape, at the darkening screen. “Honestly was not expecting that.” 

Bill snorts. “Really? He drove away an hour ago. Of course he’s going to assume the worst when you call. He spent his whole life here.”

“You know,” Richie starts, flicking his tongue against his bottom lip. He prods on the healing cut there. “I liked it better when you stuttered your way through sentences.” 

“I don’t actually stutter anymore,” Bill says. “That was for one day only.”

“Don’t kid yourself. It was two,” Richie says. Then, “Why’s that?” 

“I came back here. I remembered what it was like to be thirteen and afraid,” he explains. “The stutter came with it.”

“And it’s gone, just like that?”

“It’s gone, so the stutter followed. There’s nothing to be afraid of anymore. I’ve faced my demons.”

“All you’ve got now is an angry director and a wife you’ve left on a film set,” Richie says. “Piece of cake compared to homeless killer clowns.”

“True. If I can face the _Eater of Worlds_, I can stare down Hollywood and tell them I do not have an ending for them.”

Richie quirks a brow. “Can you?”

“No,” Bill admits. “I’m fucked.”

Richie laughs, checks his phone when it goes off twice in his hand. It’s Mike. 

Mike, who says _ fuck you_, and then _ Mario’s. _

“Ha.” Richie shows Bill the texts. “I knew it.”

Bill chortles as another text comes rolling through. _ Lose my number, Trashmouth. _

_ Saved <3_, Richie texts back.

* * *

“Are you having a midlife crisis?” Bill asks, cupping his jaw with his hand as he stares at Richie’s rental car.

“If you crash in this the insurance rates will skyrocket,” Eddie says, but he shoves his suitcases in the trunk anyway. He has to take everyone else’s stuff out to get them to fit. “Because it’s red.”

Richie rolls the window down and squints up at Bill from behind the wheel. “I came back to my hometown to fight a demonic killer clown that terrorized me for an entire summer,” he replies, blasé. “Yes, I’m having a midlife crisis. You’re really only concerned about my _ car_?”

“Not only,” Eddie replies. Richie ignores him.

Bill pats the top, one, two. “Is it a convertible?”

“You want the wind through your hair, Denbrough?” 

“Maybe,” Bill answers.

“Your wish is my command.” Richie presses a button and the roof collapses.

Eddie rolls his eyes, shoves Bill out of the way, and clamors into the passenger seat. “Why am I not surprised?” he asks no one in particular.

“You could have just asked me politely to move,” Bill comments. 

“Bill, will you _ please _ get in the car? We need to be at the airport at least three hours before we board,” Eddie commands, biting down on _ please_, so he knows he’s not being polite at all, just bossy.

“I would do what he says,” Richie adds. “Though he be but little, he is fierce.”

Eddie punches him in the arm.

“See?” Richie gestures wildly. “I’m bruising.”

“You’re not _ bruising_, you big drama queen,” Eddie retorts, “and I am not little. Will you stop?”

“I bet,” Richie mutters, twisting the key in the ignition.

Bill slips into the backseat, Eddie’s toiletry bag, Richie’s duffle, and his own weekender stacked nicely to his left. Eddie stares at him until he buckles up, then turns on the radio.

—_it’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you_—

“No,” says Richie. He changes the station.

—_died in your arms tonight, oh, it must’ve been something I_—

Eddie stabs his finger into the button.

—_if I could turn back time, if I could find a way, I’d take back those words that hurt you— _

Richie twists the dial. Eddie doesn’t let it stay on the next song, switching it a different station. Back and forth they go, never once agreeing on a song or a station or even a genre. Richie gets them forty-five seconds into a country song that makes Eddie groan, then Eddie gets them halfway through Whitney Houston before Richie realizes what he’s listening to.

Bill sends a picture of the two of them in the chat, says _ pray for me_, and leans back, closing his eyes.

Eddie and Richie let REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling” play all the way through, but then Eddie doesn’t want to listen to “Take On Me” by A-ha. He settles on a song by Tom Petty.

Ben texts back. _ It’s got nothing on Richie driving, I bet. _

_ They fought over the radio for fifteen minutes_, Bill tells him.

Eddie says, _ Richie resents that. He’s a very good driver. _

_ Eddie did you say that against your will? Are you being held hostage? Ben and I will come get you_, Bev replies.

_ Unfortunately not_, Eddie says. _ I’m here on my own volition. I think I’m crazy. _

_ Crazy 4 meeeeee_, Richie sends.

“Don’t text and drive,” Eddie snaps.

“I’m at a red light,” Richie replies.

“No excuses.” Eddie plucks Richie’s phone from his lap and drops it in the cupholder between them with a definitive clunk. “Focus on driving, please. I didn’t survive Neibolt to die in a car crash.”

“Me either,” Bill comments from the back. “Let me know if you think that’ll be an issue, I’m ready to tuck and roll.”

Richie laments loudly how they all dislike him, and what is he good for, and why is he driving them to the airport when they just want him to keel over and die? Bill laughs, looking completely at ease back there, wind ruffling his hair as he watches the clouds race above them. Eddie turns and smiles at him, which he catches out of the corner of his eye, if only to keep his gaze on the road. It’s small and it’s certain and it’s only for Richie, and it says more than words can. His body heats up at just the glimpse he’s received. If all goes well, he’ll have that forever.

The light changes. He clears his throat, presses down on the gas, and urges the miles to pass faster than they are.

Once he gets to that airport, once he gets on that flight, it’s the first day of the rest of his life.

In the group chat, his text gets flooded with exclamation points and hearts by each one of the Losers, even Eddie.

* * *

(Two.)

* * *

Richie frowns down at his seat number, looks over Eddie’s shoulder, consults his again, and says, “Switch with me.”

“No,” Eddie replies.

“Switch,” Richie says again.

“No.”

“Eddie, _ switch_.”

“Richie, _ no_.”

“Look at my legs, Eds. Look at them. Are you looking? Look. They can’t function in a middle seat. I need the aisle.”

Eddie considers this, eyes roaming over his thighs, knees, calves. He clicks his tongue, tilts his head, smiles up at Richie. “Now who’s height is called into question? Sucks to suck, you gargantuan. No. I hate the middle seat.”

“Listen, shortstack—”

“Upgrade your seat if it matters that much.”

“Will you upgrade yours?”

“No, I’m happy with mine.”

Richie groans, slouching. “I want to sit next to you,” he whines.

“It’s only about an hour to New York,” Eddie tells him, licking jelly off his finger. Richie watches him, half-annoyed by him still, but mainly just transfixed by his tongue.

He snaps out of it when Eddie casts his gaze on him, hopes his face doesn’t give him away. Eddie’s neck is flushed pink, though, slowly crawling up to his ears, so he wonders if he’s that transparent. He clears his throat. “An hour is too long.”

“For your legs? Upgrade,” Eddie says again, like it’s simple, like it’s _ easy_.

Richie shakes his head. “To be apart from you.”

God, he hates how sappy he sounds. Eddie isn’t even—Eddie hasn’t even spoken to his wife (_blech_). Richie can’t just… He can’t _ say _ shit like that.

Eddie holds his hand out, palm out, wiggles his fingers. Richie slides his between them, pretends he’s not comforted by this.

Eddie says, “You’re clingy, aren’t you?”

“Noooo,” Richie replies, drawing out the _ o_. He struggles to get out of Eddie’s grip, but he’s got his fingers in him real tight, squeezing to keep him in place.

“An hour is too long for you,” Eddie shoots back. “You are clingy! You are!”

“I’ve always been clingy,” Richie mutters. “You’ve always been clingy, too, Mr. I Need To Get In This Hammock With You Right Now Or I’ll _ Die_.”

Eddie snorts. “I’ve never said that, and you were always hogging the hammock! You never shared—of course I got in it with you. Who else was I going to get in it with? Ben? _ Mike_? I didn’t like _ them_.”

“Aw,” Richie simpers. “You had a crush on me?”

He gets smacked in the face with their joined hands. “You know I did,” Eddie retorts. “You don’t just kiss people you don’t have crushes on, Richie.”

“I mean, you do. You can.”

“Sorry,” Eddie says. “_I _ don’t.”

“Mm,” Richie hums, running his thumb over his knuckle. “You know I have, right?”

“Have what?” Eddie asks, then freezes, just enough to be noticeable. “Oh. Been with a lot of people? Yeah. I know. I figured.”

Richie chews his cheek, looks up. Their flight boards in less than twenty minutes. “I wouldn’t say a lot,” he mumbles. “But, like, it was… it was definitely more than two. And I really only meant I kissed people I didn’t have crushes on.”

“Yeah. Right. Sure.” Eddie swallows. “And, like, people? Not like, women, or—you said people.”

“Yeah. People. Both. Men. Women. All,” Richie all but stammers, and he doesn’t know why he’s so nervous. He coughs.

Eddie nods, a quick bob of his head, and then, “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“What does?”

“The… the both, and the all, and the more than two, and the—the whole thing,” Eddie forces out. “It makes sense.”

“But, like, why does it? Why does it make sense? What does that mean?”

Eddie makes a noise, flaps his hand at Richie, and looks down at his lap. “You’re, like. You’re _ you_, right,” and Richie thinks maybe he’s being insulted, maybe Eddie is saying he’s, like, easy or something. But Eddie says, “You’re hot, so,” and it’s so casual, and it’s so certain that Richie loses that train of thought—all train of thought, really—altogether.

He prods at the healing tear on his bottom lip, digs his teeth in around it, and pulls it into his mouth. Eddie’s adamantly not making eye contact now, neck strained, jaw tight, and using his free hand to scroll through his phone. They’ve got texts from the other Losers—updates on Mike’s road trip, pictures of Bev from Ben, Bill giving them a play by play of the couple arguing in front of him on his flight—but Eddie also has over three hundred emails and almost the same number of texts from someone he’s muted the conversation with. Richie can see the little _ Do Not Disturb _ half-moon in the corner when Eddie pulls up his iMessages.

Eddie exhales, hard and sharp, through his nose. It sounds painful. Looks it, too.

Richie remembers he just spoke to him, shakes himself out of it, says, “You think I’m hot?” Has Eddie looked in a mirror? Is he aware of what _ he _ looks like? Does he know what those eyes of his can _ do_?

“Obviously,” Eddie snaps, but there’s no real heat in it. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t attracted to you.”

“You were attracted to me when I had knobby knees and gangly limbs,” Richie points out.

Eddie lifts his gaze. “Has that not changed?”

“Ouch.” Richie whistles.

“You were always on my side, too,” Eddie adds, voice softer. “I felt… I felt safe with you, even when there was a fucking clown in front of me. Not many people believed in me, or listened to me, and you did. I was attracted to that, too, not just your stupid knees.”

“So it _ was _ the knees.” Richie waggles his brows, trying to get that serious, somber look off Eddie’s face. “They may be old and knobby, but I can do wonders when I’m on them.”

“Richie,” Eddie says, slow and drawn out, “what the fuck.”

He leans in closer, almost enough to press his nose against his, and gets a whiff of Eddie: of his shampoo, and his musk, and the sugar from his donut. Richie feels his throat close up with something close to fondness, and it’s like a disease, spreading to every part of his body. He wants to touch Eddie so badly, wants to be his and his alone, wants to make up for all the time he’s missed, even if it kills him. He’s forty, but he feels eighteen, and twelve, and six. He wants so much it hurts.

“I’m just saying,” he whispers. Eddie’s eyes fall to his mouth, then back up. “Don’t you want me on them? Didn’t you say _ have me _ in that bathroom?”

Eddie’s chest rises in a stutter, then falls, and his hand jerks in Richie’s. “That’s the way you want me?”

“One way,” Richie replies. He presses his fingers to the blush on Eddie’s face, dances them down to his neck, where he can feel his heartbeat, loud and hard. “There are others. Do you want me to tell you them?”

Eddie presses his lips into a thin line, blinks, starts to say, “Yeah,” but never finishes it. “We’re at the _ airport_,” he breathes instead. “You can’t just. Not at the _ airport_. The _ airport _is not the place for… for this.”

“Say airport again.”

“Airport.”

“What a turn on,” Richie teases, and it’s only half a joke.

He thinks maybe Eddie could read him every word in the dictionary and he’d be on the edge of his seat. There’s just something about Eddie’s voice that makes every single word that comes out of his mouth attractive. He used to love riling him up until he’d say shit like _ staphylococcus_, and _ xerosis_, and _ epistaxis_.

Eddie slaps his hand from his neck. “Stop,” he orders. “You’re being annoying. I can’t stand you.”

“You’re the one who mentioned my knees at the airport,” Richie tells him.

“You brought them up first.”

“Well, you told me you were attracted to them, so it’s your fault you’ve got a hard-on right now. Gosh, Eds, we’re about to board a plane!”

A deep breath and a tug on Richie’s hair. “I’m going to murder you,” Eddie says, all sticky sweet, like the sugar Richie can see on the corner of his mouth.

“I’m sure that’ll be fun,” Richie replies. “How will you do it?”

“Asphyxiation,” Eddie says immediately, like he’s thought about it. He probably has.

Richie can take that. “Kinky. Your hands or your thighs?”

“_Richie_,” Eddie warns. “The _ airport_.”

“I love when you emphasize.”

“I swear to God—”

“You do that a lot,” Richie notes. “Are you a religious man? Do you think God thinks my jokes are funny?” 

Eddie pulls his hair again. “You’re not funny.”

“Bill says I am. Says I’m funnier than my ghost writers.”

“Your ghost writers are shit,” Eddie agrees. “If anyone thinks those jokes are funny, they need to get their heads checked out.”

“I can start to write my own material,” Richie tells him, which is his plan anyway, now that he thinks he knows who he is. “I can write about how my boyfriend got turned on at the airport by the mere thought of my knees.”

“I didn’t,” Eddie says. “I’m not your boyfriend.”

Richie runs his finger down the length of Eddie’s forearm. It spasms beneath his touch. “Not yet,” he murmurs.

“If you so much as _ mention _ this airport in your stand up, I will get onto that stage and castrate you in front of everybody,” Eddie warns.

“You’ll be at my show?”

“Fucking obviously,” Eddie answers. “I’d be a terrible boyfriend if I did not support you and your shitty jokes.”

If Richie could look at himself now, he knows exactly what expression his face is making—he’s like if the heart eyes emoji combined with that other one, the smiling one with the flushed cheeks. He feels nauseous but, like, in a good way, if there’s such a thing as that, and it’s the way Eddie’s looking back at him that lets him know he’s not being as subtle as he’d like. But we’ve always known Richie was not subtle, so who is he trying to kid?

“Richie?”

Eddie’s put all the stars in the sky. Eddie’s the answer to life’s every question. Everyone else is missing out by not having Eddie, and in the next week, Richie gets to have him all to himself. Richie never has to share, or stop himself from touching him, or wonder if he’s going to leave. The Losers can have part of him, but Richie gets the rest. Richie gets it _ all_.

He leans forward again, heart pounding in his throat, the word _ boyfriend _ surging through his bloodstream, and licks at that corner of Eddie’s mouth, where the sugar and jelly settled.

Eddie splutters, pushes him back.

“Let’s go get you divorced.” Richie thrusts a thumb behind him, where the sign for their flight has changed. “They’re calling our group.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Richie spends a lot of time asking "are you sure," Eddie is anxious and has a Rich Person™ apartment for no reason, there's the Myra confrontation I hated to write, and I also don't remember the car accident Eddie got into but let's just go with what I've written because it makes life hard for Richie.

Eddie scans his boarding pass and disappears down the tiny hall to the plane, hardly sparing a second glance at Richie, who has to turn the brightness up all the way on his phone for the scanner to recognize that he’s getting on his flight. He fixes the strap of his duffle, hanging off his shoulder, and follows after Eddie.

He’s tapping his foot as he waits, a bundle of nervous energy, stuck behind a wailing child and its harried mother. He doesn’t seem to notice, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows and then unrolling them back down to his wrists.

The baby cries some more. The mother tries to give it a pacifier.

Richie comes to a stop, too close to Eddie for it to be comfortable, and kicks his heels. “Relax,” he murmurs, ducking his head towards his ear.

Eddie jumps, tensing, and then does as he says when he registers it’s Richie talking to him. He shakes his head, rubs his hand against his chin, taps his fingers on his cheek.

“I don’t want to go,” Eddie tells him in a rush. “Can we just—can we turn around? Switch flights? Let’s go straight to California.”

They move up. More passengers line up behind Richie.

Richie puts both hands on his sides, beneath his jacket, and squeezes. “We have to,” he says. “You need to do this right. You don’t want that on your conscience, just leaving her like that, and you have stuff there. Take it.”

“I don’t need it,” Eddie blurts. “I’ll just start over. I’ll call her. I’ll—mail the divorce papers. She can have the apartment, and half the money is hers anyway, I don’t _need_ anything there. I already have it all with me.” 

“The suitcases,” Richie poses carefully, thinking of the two oversized pieces of luggage they waited in line to check. They’d cost almost two hundred dollars. “Were you…” _No_, he thinks, _wrong thing to ask._ “What’s in them?”

He doesn’t expect the answer he gets. Eddie deflects more than Richie does, and this is one of those questions he’s not sure he deserves the answer to, not until Eddie is ready. “Enough that wouldn’t raise suspicion.”

“Eddie,” Richie whispers.

“I didn’t tell her where I was going,” Eddie continues, words spilling out of his mouth at a frantic speed. “We fought over me fucking hydroplaning, like she doesn’t think I’m a good driver, and then I was remembering all this shit about my childhood, and I was remembering you, and Bill, and Bev, and that fucking summer and everything that came after it, before we left, and I—I packed. I booked the next flight out of JFK. Dead or alive, I wasn’t going back. I _couldn't_ go back. So, yeah, I have everything I need, really: clothes, medications, you. I don’t need to go.”

“I’ll be right there with you,” Richie promises, heart beating in time to the repetition of Eddie’s voice:_ you, you, you_, like it’s some kind of song. _I have everything I need. You._ “It’ll be fine. You’ll be okay.”

“I don’t know if I will,” Eddie admits.

They step through onto the plane. It’s an awkward sort of shuffle they have to do, Richie’s feet on either side of Eddie’s, still holding his waist. The flight attendants at the front greet them overly enthusiastically, which only Richie returns, and Eddie scours the aisle for their seats. 

Richie hits a couple of people with his bag and they’re probably annoying everyone with the way they’re intertwined, but it doesn’t matter. Eddie’s got one hand around Richie’s wrist, and if this helps him calm down before what he’s acting like will be World War III, he’ll stay like this forever.

Eddie finds their row (fourteen) and, without a single word, slides into the middle seat.

Richie asks, “Are you sure?” as he stuffs his bag in the overhead compartment.

“Sit down,” Eddie says.

Richie does, knees pressed uncomfortably to the chair ahead of him, dislodging the safety pamphlet and the list of in-flight drinks and foods. If this were two weeks ago, he’d already be thinking about which alcoholic beverage he’d order two of, despite the flight being less than an hour and a half. Instead he waits for everyone to board so he can spread his legs out and makes sure to keep one leg against Eddie for comfort reasons—both for Eddie and for himself.

The attendants go over the various procedures, indicate emergency exits and safety vests, pointing in stiff choreography around the plane. Eddie does not pay attention, which is weird to Richie; he assumed Eddie listened to things like this, but maybe as a risk analyst he already knows it. Knows the statistics and numbers, the rate of accidents.

Richie watches, though, for something to do. He’s honestly never done that before.

The pilot welcomes them, thanks them. They are checked to make sure their seatbelts are fastened. The flight taxis, takes off. The baby cries.

Eddie shifts closer to Richie, breathes in deep, shoves his face against his arm. Richie moves before he can think otherwise, nudging him. Eddie lifts his head with a disgruntled sound and the tiniest hint of a pout.

Richie raises a brow, throws his arm around him, brings him close. Eddie resumes his place near his shoulder. 

“Better?” Richie asks.

“Better,” Eddie mumbles.

The plane levels out.

* * *

It’s unclear who hates this more: Eddie, who has every reason to be anxious, about to go home to the wife he’d been planning on just abandoning (very unlike him), or Richie, who has been stopped on ten separate occasions since getting off in JFK.

He’ll admit to having been in a bubble since landing in Maine. He’d stumbled through his stand up, which only got slightly better as the night progressed, but it wasn’t, like, _good_. He’d acted as he always did, signed autographs and took pictures, and then left after an hour—with a bag full of things he could find in his dressing room—straight to the airport.

And when he got home, when he got to Derry, faced with his old friends and It, he’d forgotten that he’s—what’s the word?—famous.

Once someone notices you, everyone notices you, so now he’s trying to force himself through a crowd of people (fans). Trying to give them what they want. Trying to be nice. Trying to be polite. Trying not to lose Eddie in the crowd. Eddie is so _small_; he’s so tiny. He disappears almost immediately, and he wants to—

He wants to punch somebody.

He doesn’t. That’s not proper. His agent’ll have an aneurysm and the media will have a field day and TMZ will talk about him for the next six weeks.

So he smiles, and he signs, and he pretends his signature is great and not so fucking flashy, and he tries not to yell at any other kids. _That one is dead_, he remembers suddenly. Bill couldn’t save him.

He’s extra nice to the kids, after that.

Eddie is by the bathroom when he emerges, tired like he’s been up for three days straight. Maybe he has. Eddie's brain never actually turns off, running through all the situations and scenarios he could face at any given time. He’s worried a hole in the sleeve of his hoodie. “Parents let their ten-year-olds watch your stuff?”

“One of them was eight,” replies Richie. “Her birthday is in two days. She told me.”

“_Eight_?”

“Nine, technically,” Richie corrects.

Eddie blinks. “What part of your stand up is suitable for children?”

Richie grins, but it’s not even slightly amusing. He thinks he might be a little bit horrified. “None of it.”

“What the _fuck_.” Eddie groans. He scrubs a hand over his face, pulls at the corner of his eye. “I mean, it’s not funny, so I guess the only audience you would have is children. They think the height of humor is fart jokes.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Richie says pleasantly.

Eddie asks how.

“Not sure yet,” he replies. “I plan to rip our your tongue, though.”

“Hm.” Eddie rolls onto the balls of his feet. Presses his toes down, rises a few inches. Goes flat. “You’ll only be punishing yourself. I’m good with my tongue.”

Richie’s brain short-circuits. “You’re—what?”

“Good with my tongue,” Eddie repeats.

“Huh, right.” Richie surreptitiously pinches the skin of his wrist, under the sleeve of his jacket. It is warming up in here; Richie is _sweltering_. “You’ll give me a demonstration one day?”

“Can’t,” Eddie says, unapologetically. “You’re ripping it out, remember?”

It feels like everyone is looking at Richie, but he only has eyes for Eddie, and he stares at his mouth with narrow-minded focus, banishing the world until it’s just the two of them. He can see it play out, right here in the airport. If he were twenty years younger and not fucking famous, he’d forget all about their destination, their plans, and he’d pull Eddie into the family bathroom, lock the door, and see what that mouth can do besides insult him into next Tuesday.

But life doesn’t work out that way: Eddie’s still married, Richie is incredibly famous, and he thinks maybe he wouldn’t want to fuck him in an airport bathroom, actually. That sort of thing, with Eddie, deserves more than that. Better than that. Also the germs.

Why is he thinking about this?

Eddie smirks at him. “You good?”

“Fine,” Richie bleats. “You can keep your tongue, I guess, but you better not be lying.”

“Me, lying?” Eddie questions, batting his lashes. “Never.”

He hates that he finds that attractive and clears his throat. His pants are too tight suddenly, and he can’t stop thinking about Eddie’s goddamn lips wrapped around his—nope, no, _no_. He swings his duffle, accidentally hits himself in the dick, _ow_, and now he’s thinking about it, really thinking about it. He mentally catalogs all of his jokes, each one more awful than the last, until he can get a handle on himself.

“Baggage claim,” he says, “then after that, we’re going to…?”

“The bar,” Eddie says.

“Eds, we can’t just—”

“But I _can_, and don’t call me that, my name is Eddie,” he snaps back. “People do it all the time. I can just leave, call her, say _Hey, Myra, yeah, I’m not coming back, I’d like a divorce, thank you, goodbye._ We’ve only been married, like, five years. It’s _fine_.”

Richie frowns. “It is not fine. You’re, like, a very respectable person, you wouldn’t just—”

Eddie twists on his heel, glares up at him. They’re outside a Starbucks now; the coffee wafts out, mixed with toasted bagels and something incredibly sugary. It’s distracting. It makes Richie’s head hurt. Why is Eddie looking at him like this?

“Stop pressuring me. You never pressure me to do anything. Why are you starting now?” 

“You’re not the kind of guy who would just up and abandon his entire life,” Richie says automatically.

“You don’t know that,” Eddie retorts. “You don’t know me. You haven’t even thought about me for the past twenty years.”

Richie’s mouth blurts, “How do you know that?”

“We _forgot_ each other,” Eddie reminds him. “It wasn’t until Mike’s call that I remembered why I felt like I knew you every time I watched your shit.”

“I thought about you,” Richie insists, and it’s hard to explain. Even he doesn’t understand it. “I thought about Bill, too, and Stan, and everyone else. I just didn’t know I was thinking about them. I _missed_ you. I didn’t know what that feeling was, and I would think about it, about you, and it was like there was this hole in my chest, and it was shaped just like you, and them, and the memory of you guys was always so close but so out of reach, and I—I knew there was something important I wasn’t remembering, and I didn’t know it was you until three days ago.” He breaks off, chest heaving, feeling like he’s run a marathon. Not just run a marathon, but won it, too. First place. Gold medalist or some shit. “I’m sorry that I can feel this way about you after five goddamn seconds. I fucking hit the _gong_ at the Chinese place because I had no idea what to do with myself and I wanted attention from you like I was—_I_ just need you to go talk to her, _I do_, me, because I want to make sure you’re making the right choice, and you won’t regret—”

“Richie, if you don’t think I’ll go anywhere you ask me to right this very second—”

“No, look, it’s been a very crazy week, and tensions are high, I get it. We’ve all done some scary shit, and we’ve reacted to it best we can, but you just don’t leave your wife for your childhood best friend, you know?”

Eddie looks at him like he’s stupid. “Yes, you do,” he says, “when it’s me, and when it’s you. You leave your wife for your childhood best friend because in a perfect world without a killer clown and wiped memories you don’t have a wife in the first place.”

Richie twists the strap of his duffle. Scuffs his foot on the floor. “You’re sure?”

“I don’t fucking like her,” Eddie tells him. “It just seemed like the right thing to do. My mom—”

“Say no more.” Richie has very strong memories of that woman. He may make jokes about her, but that’s only because she makes him so fucking _mad_. Or at least she did, when she was around and controlling Eddie’s every move. God, she turned him into a fucking hypochondriac, had him taking placebos, had him thinking he was sick, just so she could keep him on a leash.

She tried to take him away that summer, too, the summer of Pennywise. Eddie hadn’t allowed that, had needed his friends as much as they needed him, knew who had his back. Knew who really loved him. Knew what Sonia did wasn’t anything other than manipulation.

Richie looks at Eddie, at the way he always looks so sad and anxious, and has the horrifying thought that when Eddie left Derry, he forgot all that, and Mrs. K got everything she’d ever wanted. Without the Losers, was Eddie able to break free of her control?

“No, let me,” Eddie says, biting down on his thumb. “I have to say it.”

He nods at him, shoves his hands in his pockets.

“She was hounding me about not having someone, about not being married, about being alone and thirty, and she wouldn’t shut up, and she wouldn’t leave me be,” Eddie explains, fast and furious. Richie listens intently to get it all, because Eddie will probably never say this again. “I didn’t want to date anybody. Not really. I didn’t feel like I needed to, but she got sick, and she got worried that I’d end up like her in the end. That I’d end up alone. She said it over and over until finally it became my fear, being alone forever, and I couldn’t—” Eddie’s words come crashing to a halt, slamming right into each other, like he’s too out of it to form coherent sentences.

Richie waits for the rest, but Eddie only shakes his head and turns.

They’re headed to baggage claim now, and Richie knows almost everything and literally nothing about Eddie’s marriage. He doesn’t think he’ll get anymore, and that’s fine, Eddie doesn’t have to tell him anything if he doesn’t want to. He’s not going to pry.

Eddie’s trying to curl in on himself as he picks up speed, shoulders hunching to his ears. He looks uncomfortable, all compact like that, with his elbows pressed tightly to his sides. Richie picks up the pace, thankful for his long legs for once, and throws his arm over his shoulder.

“Let’s get your stuff,” he says, “and then we can go to the bar and you can tell me just how many times you’ve watched my stand up.”

“Literally once,” Eddie mutters, “and we’re not staying at the airport to drink. That’s appalling.”

“If I recall,” Richie starts grandly, using a voice, “you said _every time_ you watched my shit, which implies you’ve watched it more than once. In this essay, I will—”

Eddie shrugs his arm from his shoulders. “I like to read the YouTube comments,” he admits. “You have such… _dedicated_ fans.”

“And haters,” Richie adds. “Which one are you?”

“Oh, definitely a hater,” Eddie answers. “I can’t stand you.”

“Mhm,” he agrees with a hum. “I bet.”

The smile Eddie gives him is smarmy and crooked. It sends Richie’s heart beating in his chest like he’s the goddamn Energizer bunny, vibrating all way down to his toes. He shakes out his ankles like that’ll help, rolls them out, and brushes his knuckles against Eddie’s as they head to the escalator.

Eddie runs the pad of his thumb along his wrist bone, fits their fingers together, and they are holding hands in John F. Kennedy Airport.

This is totally ending up on the fucking Internet. 

* * *

It does, and Eddie laughs so hard whiskey almost comes out of his nose when he reads the tweet Richie shows him.

_yeah not surprised when someone’s comedy show is as painfully heterosexual as **@richietozier**’s it means he ain’t #cutetho_

“I am _bi_.” He shakes his phone vigorously, accidentally reloading the feed. “Painfully heterosexual? What does that even _mean_?”

“It means,” Eddie says, coughing, “that no one likes your masturbation joke. No one. Not this person. Not me. Not even your writers, because they wrote it and they must hate you. Or that one about the threesome you definitely didn’t have, or the underwear one, or—any of it, really. You don’t have fans, that’s what I decided just now.”

Richie pushes his glasses into his hair and rubs his eyes. “Listen, I’ll write my own shit. I’ll stop being—” He tilts his head back, looks up at the ceiling. It’s dark in this bar despite it being, like, mid-afternoon. “I will start,” he amends, “being more bisexual for everyone. More Eddie-sexual.”

“Talk about the airports and my death threats will be death promises,” Eddie reminds him. He drains his glass, looks around for the bartender.

“I’ll talk about the killer clown,” Richie proposes. “And how sewer systems can be romantic.”

Eddie abandons his task of getting another drink and turns his head. “If you so much as even hint at us kissing in a _sewer_, I will—”

“—get on stage and castrate me in front of everyone,” Richie finishes. “I know. I was going to make fun of Ben and Bev, if you must know.”

“Ew, mention the quarry,” Eddie suggests. “The fact that they kissed _underwater_? I bet they have cholera. Or dysentery. We should have gone straight to the hospital and all gotten typhoid shots.”

“Have you ever considered taking up comedy?” Richie asks. “The stuff you say is so funny. Typhoid shots. Honestly.”

Eddie wields his red stirrer at him, close to poking him in the eye. “This is serious. I should call them. I should call Bill. Oh my god, we haven’t heard from Mike since we landed, do you think he’s—”

“—dead in a ditch somewhere? Hopefully.”

“Richie, _please_.”

“I’m kidding, obviously.” He stretches his leg onto one of Eddie’s massive suitcases. His knee cracks. “It’s too soon to be making jokes like that. Maybe next week.”

Eddie kicks him, which makes Richie lose his balance, and types on his phone screen. Instead of checking his own, he reads over his shoulder, resting his chin there. _Hello, making sure no one has contracted or died of Hep E since swimming at the Barrens. Please respond with your status. _

Richie pokes his finger out real fast to select an emoji before Eddie can hit send. It’s the happy devil face, which isn’t funny but makes Richie laugh anyway.

_That was Richie, _Eddie informs the chat. _He had one bourbon and Coke and thinks he can lay on top of me._

_So nothing new then_, Bev replies. _I’m alive. Can’t tell for sure if Ben is though. I’ll get back to you._

Ben sends his own emoji: the lady dancing in the red dress. There is no context or meaning. Richie nods in agreement though. He gets it. Ben is thriving.

Bill sends a picture of his computer screen, still with no words for his Hollywood movie ending. Mike says, _That’s my favorite part of the book, Bill!_

_Kill them all_, Eddie suggests.

_Hep E_, adds Bev.

Ben sends _fire, upside down smiley face, knife._

Mike says, _Ben’s right, no one will be happy anyway, might as well do what you want. _

_Thanks Mike,_ Ben writes. _How is your road trip? _

_Red Sox lost last night_, he tells them all. _Hot dog was good though. I’m taking it real slow. _

_You deserve it! _Bev replies immediately, followed by a string of pink hearts.

There’s a blurry picture of Ben’s dog next, which Bill loves the shit out of, and then the chat is gone, replaced by the name _Myra_, who is calling Eddie. His phone asks if he wants to accept or decline.

Eddie drops it instead of choosing, lets it ring and ring and ring, and steeples his hands in front of his mouth. He stares straight across the bar at the variety of liquor bottles. His screen lights up with a missed call notification, and then it vibrates again.

_Myra (1)_

_Myra (2)_

_Myra (3)_

_Myra (4) _

When she calls a fifth time and Richie’s mind and body are no longer connected and he’s about to pick it up (stupid), Eddie actively declines it, not just letting it go organically to voicemail, and flips his phone over.

“She knows I’m back in New York.”

“How?”

Eddie shrugs. “Probably has a GPS tracker on my phone, who fucking knows,” he mutters. “I need another drink.”

“Wait, did you say _GPS tracker_?” Richie demands. “Like, the kind of thing you put in your car to make sure you get to where you have to get to? That kind of GPS?”

“It’s a possibility.” Eddie gestures to their bartender, a twenty-something with pink dip-dyed hair, and somehow manages to get himself a double instead of the tame whiskey ginger he’d been drinking earlier. “She likes constant updates.”

“What is she, your moth—” Richie bites down hard on his tongue to stop himself from speaking and draws blood from the force of it. He fishes an ice cube out of his glass, puts it on his tongue, fights to keep from hissing from the sting of it.

Eddie huffs out a bitter laugh, swallows half of his drink. “Yep,” he says. “I married my mother.”

Richie fights to keep his mouth shut. Now would be the perfect time to develop some kind of filter. He’s forty. He should know when to be quiet. The ice cube helps, but it is melting at an alarming speed.

He still manages to ask him why, then bites down on the ice so the crunch of it fills the silence that follows.

“I guess my mother’s love was the only kind I knew,” Eddie answers slowly, thoughtfully. Each word is picked with the utmost care and consideration. “I didn’t know any better. I thought… it was normal for her to be like that.”

“To be overbearing and controlling? To try to make you something you’re not?”

“I survived as long as I did because of her,” Eddie says. “I had a place to live. I was fed. I had a mother. A lot of people don’t have that.”

Richie thinks of Mike, with his grandparents, mother and father consumed by fire. He thinks of Bev, living with her father, who was just as bad, who fled from her own marriage to be with Ben, because she—

They all forgot each other, and all they had was what they knew. Eddie’s mom was a constant, and without the memories of Pennywise and the summer of 1989, and the other Losers proving to him that he is as strong as everyone else, as _brave_, he didn’t know it unless she told him. She wouldn’t have done that. What Richie remembers of her, and for some reason he remembers a lot, she wanted to keep Eddie small, scared, and hers. A mess of a boy with made up diagnoses and fake asthma that turned into an actual anxiety disorder. That’s what Eddie was. That’s what he turned back into.

That fucking _sucks_.

“She made you think you wouldn’t survive without her,” Richie bites out, then regrets it, but he can’t stop. “Do you remember what it was like when you were here? When you didn’t let her control you?”

“It’s coming back,” Eddie says. “The more time I spend with you, the more I remember.” He finishes off his whiskey, knocks his knuckles against the bar top. “I remember how different it felt being with the others, how it didn’t feel like it did with my mom. I remember I loved you. I loved you best.”

Richie makes a very strangled sound deep in the back of his throat. “I love you best now,” he says.

“I know,” Eddie murmurs. “I love you best now too.”

“I’m sorry I made you come here,” Richie says, just as low. “I shouldn’t have. You’re allowed to just run away.”

“No,” Eddie replies. “You’re right. I have to talk to her. Not because I may change my mind, but because I won’t be able to start over without the closure.”

“So we’re going home?”

“We’re going to the apartment I live in with my wife,” Eddie corrects, “and then I’m going home with you.” There is a distinct difference between the two places.

Richie blinks, studies Eddie’s profile. He used to be so good at reading his face, his emotions. He could tell before it happened when Eddie would get upset, or mad, or really riled up. He knew exactly what buttons to press and what things to say to get Eddie to do exactly what he wanted. Either Eddie has gotten better at hiding all that or he can’t figure him out as well as he used to.

It’s gotta be the first one—_it has to be_—because there is no way Eddie does not want the same thing as Richie right now.

Four empty shot glasses are lined up in front of them, then filled to the brim with whiskey. Richie looks up at their bartender, who wipes her hands on a wet towel and says, “You guys look like you could use these.”

“_Mhm_,” Eddie agrees, sharp and grateful. He takes both of his like they’re water, one after the other, taps his knuckles on the bar top, and turns his head towards Richie. “You going to drink yours?”

“Um, _yeah_,” Richie answers, blinking to avoid the pull of Eddie’s gaze. “They’re _free_, right?” He catches the bartender’s attention. “Right?”

She’s clearly not all that thrilled with them, if her quirked brow is any indication, but she nods. “Yeah,” she tells Richie. “You guys are making me so sad.”

Eddie’s face contorts. He leans closer to Richie, digs his elbow into his side, and brings his mouth to his ear. Richie’s head _swims_, but is it from the alcohol (they haven’t eaten much today) or is it from Eddie (whose close proximity always sent Richie reeling)?

“Should we be offended?” Eddie whispers.

Richie knocks his shot back to mask the shiver that creeps down his spine. Smacks his lips. Says, “No, they’re _free_, who cares why we got them?” 

* * *

Eddie slathers on hand sanitizer and makes them take the subway.

Richie struggles with this for three reasons: He's kind of drunk, Eddie definitely hates public transportation (_dirty_), and he, as in Richie, is now pulling along both of Eddie’s overpacked suitcases. Jesus fucking Christ. He keeps banging them into his heels.

“You only wear polos and fuckin’ khakis,” Richie says at some point. “What the fuck is in here? Why is this so heavy?” 

Eddie retorts, “I hate khakis. Fuck khakis. How dare you.”

He never finds out what’s really in them; he just drags them, somehow faster than Eddie, which is problematic at best—Richie doesn’t know where they’re going. And here’s the kicker: as confident as he’d been at the airports, at the bar, literally _everywhere_, the closer they get to wherever the hell they’re going, he feels the anxiety churning in his stomach. It’s like he knows—he’s not sure how—that this is it. Eddie is not going back here. He’s _not_. 

(_He can’t._)

That doesn’t stop Richie from wondering. From speculating. From thinking they’ll go in there and Eddie will show him the guest room and kiss his wife and unpack his suitcases and act like the entire time they’d been in Derry had been some awful dream. _Or_, he thinks, gnawing on his lower lip, suitcases rolling behind him, twisting and turning, needing to be righted as they drop from sidewalk to street, _he’s already forgotten._

Richie inhales sharp, practically a sniff. “Eddie,” he calls. He tightens his grip on the handle, fighting the shaking in his fingers. Why the fuck is he like this?

Eddie turns. “Hm?” 

Richie notices he doesn’t call him by his name, which isn’t weird but seems to be the end of the world to him right now. He looks at him, at his jawline, and his nose, and those eyebrows that make him look sad and confused but not so much anymore, and he wants to kiss him. 

(_Please let him be able to kiss him._)

“Do you remember,” he starts, and then stops, because it’s stupid and he can find something else to ask him if he tries hard enough. _Do you remember this nonsensical childhood memory, Eddie Spaghetti? _He doesn’t, though; he can’t get those words out, almost like he’s not allowed to lie, and he smacks his lips together. Stands there. Looks from Eddie to the sky to the street to Eddie again. 

He gets no answer—he gets _nothing_—and fiddles with the sleeve of his jacket, cuffing it.

Eddie closes in, and despite his height, it feels like he’s looming over Richie. “Remember what?”

Richie presses down on the release button on the handle in his hand over and over and over again. _Click, click, click_—the only sound surrounding them other than his breathing, quick and shallow. 

He doesn’t want to say it, because if the answer is yes… 

He swallows roughly, banishing the thought. _Click, click, click_. 

“Do I remember what?” Eddie repeats. 

Richie looks up. “Just do you remember?” _Click, click, click._

“There’s a lot to unpack there,” Eddie replies, but his voice is soft. 

He stops Richie from pressing the button again, curling his hand around his. It’s uncomfortable, but it calms his racing heart. He’s not an anxious person in the slightest—he’d conquered that real fast, if he was; comedy would only allow so much—but he feels right now as if he’s having the anxiety attack from hell. Eddie’s touch stops it, though, and it wanes into something easier to manage, into the normal feeling he’s been getting around him since they were maybe ten years old.

(_Huh. He’s loved him for that long?_)

He swallows, says, “Me. Do you remember _me_?” even though it’s probably the stupidest thing he’s ever said. There’s just… there’s this _niggling_ in his brain, and… and…

It is silent as Richie stares at him, feels the warmth of Eddie’s fingers in his. It’s pathetic, maybe, the way Eddie has always been able to calm him down, coax him from the edge. He wonders how he managed to survive without him, twenty some-odd years of bad decisions and spiraling thought processes. His therapist hardly knew what to do with him, but Eddie—Eddie would’ve known. He’d do this, hold his hand and his gaze, and everything would suddenly be clear.

Except for right now, you know, where Richie’s blood pressure is skyrocketing and he’s nothing but anxious limbs and he needs Eddie to say one specific thing.

_Say yes_, he thinks. _Say yes, say yes, say yes, tell me this is real, tell me you’re not going to leave me._

The logical side of Richie’s brain knows Eddie probably wouldn’t be holding a stranger’s hand in the middle of—is this Brooklyn? Is it Queens?—but Richie is not logical, at least not now, and they haven’t spoken in maybe thirty minutes. Maybe more. Time is moving very oddly right now. There was something about being away from Derry that made them forget, and Richie didn’t, not yet (_please not ever_), but maybe Eddie—

Richie startles at a bird’s shrill squawk somewhere to his right, thought process coming to a crashing halt. The sound rings in his ears like it’s sitting there on his shoulder, and he checks to see if it is. It’s not, there’s nothing there, but he cranes his neck to look for it, and finds a pair of beady eyes staring at him from across the way. He feels like he knows them but he can’t figure out _how_, and they are blinking knowingly at him, like they’re trying to tell him something but can’t. He’s too far away. He should get closer.

He forgets all about his question and loosens his grip on the suitcase, taking a tentative step towards it. The bird flaps its wings, once, twice, almost beckoning him, and Richie wants to know what it has to say, because he’s under the impression birds talk now. Not like that would be the weirdest thing he’s ever come across.

Eddie squeezes his hand, says, “Trashmouth,” and Richie turns back, heart in his throat. He called him Trashmouth, _Trashmouth_, not Richie, and the way he did it, tender and warm, it means a lot more than it should. “I told you already,” he murmurs, “I’m only capable of forgetting you once.”

The bird shouts again, louder, but Richie doesn’t hear it, heat flooding his face as swiftly as relief takes over his bloodstream. Eddie clearly relishes in the way his fingers are cold against his cheeks when he cups them, if his grin is anything to go by. Richie runs his tongue over his teeth, nose to nose with Eddie. They’re sharing breath. Eddie’s on his _tiptoes_. 

“Okay,” Richie says. “I was just.” His words fumble to a stop, and he feels idiotic, he really does. This is not the time. He can see it on Eddie’s face. Can feel it in the way he leans forward, eliminating space between them. Can see it in the way their mouths are supposed to touch, are _about _to touch, but aren’t, but _can’t_, because he’s talking.

That’s all he does. He talks, talks, _talks_.

“Just worried because you haven’t said a word to me, and I don’t remember even forgetting you, but I know it was gradual because I thought about you for maybe a month after I moved until you were just—nonexistent,” he blurts almost in a panic. 

Eddie’s mouth is so close, and it’s not like they haven’t ever fucking kissed before, but right now—he doesn’t know. He’s standing somewhere he’s never been and Eddie is about to—and Richie is— 

He’s about to get everything he’s ever wanted. Everything he spent twenty years not knowing he needed but yearned for anyway. Everything he never thought he’d lose at eighteen. 

It doesn’t seem real, is all, but Eddie feels real, just like he did in the sewer.

And before the spiral starts (or continues, depending on how you look at it), Eddie kisses him. His mouth is soft and warm and tastes like the spice of whiskey and he tangles his fingers in Richie’s hair, right at the base of his neck, drawing him even closer. Richie exhales into it, drops the suitcase—it falls—and hooks an arm around Eddie’s waist. The kiss does not progress past the sweet comfort it provides, but Richie still chases it when he feels it end. Longs to keep Eddie just like this.

“I’m nervous,” Eddie admits, breath ghosting across Richie’s lips. “That’s why I’m so quiet. I didn’t anticipate coming back here.” 

Richie remembers _dead or alive_ and squeezes Eddie’s hip. 

“In and out, right?” he says. “We don’t even have to stay here. We can just—you can just—talk to her and take your things and then we can, I don’t know, go back to the airport. I’m sure there’s a flight to L.A. we can get on.”

Eddie makes a face. “I am absolutely not getting on another plane today,” he says. “I feel disgusting.” 

“You _want _to stay here?” 

“Absolutely not,” Eddie repeats. “I don’t like it here.” 

“Okay,” Richie replies slowly, “then what? Road trip?”

“No, I—“ Eddie flaps his hand in lieu of words. “It’ll be… I’ll talk to her and I’ll get my car, which is sort of, like, uh. It’s destroyed on one side, so there’s that, we can talk about that at a different time, and then we can just not stay there.” He brushes his thumb along the pulse point in Richie’s neck, then strokes his jawline, right by his chin. “We wouldn’t even be able to share a room, let alone the same bed, and…” 

_And I’ve gotten used to that_, he doesn’t say. 

Richie gets it. Feels it in his stomach, in his feet, in his hands. He’s shared a bed with him twice so far, but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep alone, without Eddie, ever again. He’s used to having him close, having him pressed against his side as they stand, sit, do nothing. Having his warmth mere inches away, easy to grab with a foot or a hand. 

“That’s a plan,” Richie says. Not a long-term one, or even a _good_ one, but it’s—it is what it is. “Are we far from your—are we close?” 

Eddie nods, bounces on his heels. “Maybe another ten minutes. I don’t normally walk, but I needed the time to think.” He grimaces at Richie and the suitcases, one lying flat on its side by his feet. “Sorry. I should have driven and left my car at the airport.” 

“It’s fine,” Richie tells him as if his arms aren’t currently aching. He can feel his pulse in his elbows. “Do you know what you’re going to do?” 

“No.” Eddie bites his lip, drags his teeth. “I mean, yeah, I do, but.” Pause: long, deliberate. Richie watches the conflict rise and set in his eyes like the sun. “It’s going to be… just be prepared. It could get messy.” 

“Messy how?” Richie asks. 

Eddie makes that face again, where he kind of wants to make himself smaller but also flee. Richie hates that. “I don’t know, like, maybe don’t engage at all. Even if she says things you don’t like. Just. Just let me handle it. Take a nap or something.” 

“A nap,” he repeats flatly. “You’re saying this could be bad, but I should take a _nap_?” 

“Look, it’s a thing I have to do,” Eddie says, “even more so now than before because I was just going to leave without a word like an asshole.” He holds Richie’s gaze, and they are still so close to each other that Richie can only see into one of his eyes at a time. “Especially since I’m leaving her for someone else.” 

If Richie had any words, they dried up with his mouth, with his throat. _Especially since I’m leaving her for someone else_. He’s that someone else. Richie is. It cannot be as easy as it seems. It really can’t; it doesn’t seem possible, and yet…

“Right,” he croaks, because he doesn’t want to ask _are you sure? _and somehow get a different response than the fifteen other times he’s asked. They’re so close. He’s so nervous. He can’t have Trashmouth jinx it. “A nap it is.” 

* * *

They’re not through the foyer before Myra swoops down on them (Eddie), looking both large and formidable and small and scared all at once. Richie runs his own foot over when he sees her, startled by her appearance. She wears one of those white nightgowns like a ghost would—no, like the female protagonist would in some old-timey suspense movie. All she’s missing is a fucking candelabra.

She shatters his eardrums when she wails, “_Eeeddiiiiieeee_!” 

Eddie stiffens, Richie’s toe throbs, and Myra realizes he is not alone. There is a script writing itself in Richie’s head: a sitcom-type thing, jokes that hit hard and fast, that leave the audience laughing and gloss over the issue this poses. _Amusing things that happen to everyday people! Relatable content! This has probably happened to you, but it was tragic and now it’s leaving you in stitches because you forgot all about the trauma!_

You can make anything funny if you try hard enough, if you know comedy well, and even though Richie doesn’t write his own shit, he knows how to diffuse tension and turn something awful into something funny. Bill said he’d made It easier to bear because he did that, because he wouldn’t shut up. When Richie’s nervous he tells jokes, and it doesn’t matter if they’re good or not because it places attention on something else. He could tell one now. He could tell seven, starting with that nightgown and the candelabra. 

He doesn’t.

He also doesn’t try to comfort Eddie, even though he wants to. His fingers twitch, ache. He tightens them around the suitcase handle again, like he’s been doing all day. They’re going to be stuck like that when he’s finally done lugging these around, all curled in like claws. 

Richie stretches his fingers out anyway, elongating them until the knuckles crack, and if he brushes against Eddie’s elbow it is _by accident_, okay?

“Hi, Myra,” Eddie recovers, stepping into Richie’s hand, jostling it to his back, where the fingers spread out. Richie leaves his palm there, hot against his jacket. “This is—”

“Richie Tozier,” she says, and _oh man_, does she not like him. Wow. The way she said his _name_—it’s like he’s a mass murderer, or a sex criminal, a _human trafficker_. “Why is he in my house?”

He is _detestable_, Richie is, and Myra _knows who he is_.

“He was there,” Eddie provides. “In Maine. We went to school together. In Derry.”

Richie was told not to participate, but it’s kind of awkward—it was always going to be, but now it is especially—and his mouth works faster than his brain. “Surprise,” he says weakly, lifting his free hand in a crude replication of spirit fingers or whatever.

Myra blinks at Richie and his wiggling fingers in blatant distaste and then turns to Eddie, her eyes widening and mouth twisting into a frown. She softens so quickly it gives Richie whiplash. “Eddie,” she begins (_whines_), “you know I don’t like him. Why would you bring him here?”

“You only dislike him because I like him,” Eddie returns.

Richie presses his thumb into Eddie’s spine, where it is tense, ears pricked.

“Like is very misleading,” Myra replies. “You’re obsessed with him.”

Richie knows exactly what he’s doing when he drawls, “Why, Eddie, I _never_,” and fans his face, a flushed Southern Belle prone to fainting spells.

Myra looks like she’s going to murder him on the spot—and she could, if she had that candelabra, smashed right there against his temple—and Richie physically has to bite down on his answering smile. Riling her up is probably not for the best, but Eddie is smoothing out beneath his hand, spine unsnapping and posture loosening. Richie’s teasing does that; he’s got such an adverse reaction to anything he says that Eddie, no matter the situation or his mood, will respond to it.

Just like now, where Eddie shakes Richie free, where Myra sees that Richie’s hand has been pressed against his back, Eddie snaps, “Shut up, Richie, you’re not funny.”

“All evidence points to you thinking I _am_, though,” Richie says. “Even your wife here—”

Eddie shoves him hard, like they’re ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen on the playground, and Richie snorts, stumbling back. He knocks over one of the suitcases, which almost topples a vase full of (fake) flowers to the floor, and Eddie, despite everything, laughs. His face reddens as he coughs to mask it, covering his mouth with a fist.

Richie rights it, shoves his hands in his pockets. Preens under Eddie’s attention.

They’ve reverted into their younger selves, that much is obvious: Eddie, battling with his mother; Richie, making jokes, picking fun. It unsettles him that it’s happening all over again—they’re very much _not_ teenagers, no one should own anyone like this—but Richie has always been able to make these types of things all about him instead of all about Mrs. K humiliating Eddie in front of his friends.

What had he done that one time? Asked her if she wanted a kiss from him, too, because Eddie was embarrassed that (at twelve) she was still making him do that before he left the house. Eddie’d shoved him out the door, whacking him on the bicep—_stop that, man, that’s my _mom—but he’d felt his gratitude in the way he’d slipped his hand in his and squeezed. It lasted for maybe less than two seconds, but Richie’s palm had tingled for hours after. Stan—ugh, _Stan_—had stared at him in that knowing way of his and for once did not roll his eyes when Eddie bought only Richie ice cream later on like he always did.

“What’s going on.” It’s a question, but Myra does not word it as one, and her voice hovers the line of infuriated and curious. She looks at Richie the same way Mrs. K did: pinched brows, narrowed eyes.

_Dirty secret, dirty secret_, Pennywise’s voice says in his head. Then Henry Bowers, and his cousin, and everyone else who’d taken one look at Richie and decided they knew enough to spit insults and call him names. _Fairy, faggot, get out of my town, run, pretty boy, run—_

Mrs. K, one time, called him and Bev dirty. Told Eddie, _I don’t want you hanging around those dirty children, Eddie-bear, it’s just not safe. You don’t know what kind of things they get into. _It was clear she wasn’t talking about Stan (she had other words for him), or Bill (no one talked about Bill, not after Georgie), or Ben (she didn’t seem to care for him, pretended he wasn’t even there), or Mike (there were worse things to say than dirty, and she’d said them before). Bev, who was the only girl, so that said _something_, and Richie, who was loudmouthed and mean, but doted on Eddie and got doted on in return. They were the dirty ones.

That’s when Eddie’s irrational fear of sexually transmitted diseases started. Richie and Bev were unclean, and Mrs. K could easily whisper into Eddie’s ear and make him think he could catch anything from anyone and anywhere, and Eddie should not hang out with them.

At present, Richie frowns, remembering how easy it was for Eddie to believe everything his mother told him and how he needed to be beat over the head just for the things his friends told him to stick. _Brave, smart, loyal. I love you. You’re my best friend. We couldn’t do it without you. I love you, I love you, I love you._

If they hadn’t forgotten each other, Eddie would know all this. Eddie wouldn’t be standing here, emotionally manipulated by his wife and the ghost of his mother, who Richie is certain is possessing Myra. He wouldn’t even _know_ Myra, because they’d have been together, Richie and Eddie. Why hadn’t they been together? Why did they separate? That doesn’t make any sense.

He’s remembering now, though, if the way he’s standing means anything. He doesn’t look so uncomfortable, so nervous, and Myra can tell that too. She straightens her shoulders, lifts her chin, glares at Richie like it’s his fault (_it is, probably_) and meets her husband’s eyes.

She repeats her question. The not-question.

Eddie says, “We need to talk, Myra.”

“You didn’t want to talk when you left,” she retorts, crossing her arms.

Richie decides he really fucking hates her nightgown.

“Yeah, well.” Eddie waves a hand, practically a dismissal, and Richie’s bloodstream fills with fucking _glee_ at the look on Myra’s face. “I want to talk now.”

“I’ll put on the kettle,” she concedes.

“I don’t want tea,” Eddie says.

“Fine,” she says, moving towards the kitchen.

Eddie looks over his shoulder to catch Richie’s gaze; Richie offers him a thumbs up, then surges forward to link their fingers, to squeeze. He wants this to be easy for him. He wants him to be done in ten minutes, ready to face the rest of his life with Richie, but he knows it won’t.

“Guess I’ll take that nap,” Richie murmurs softly.

“Leave the bags down here,” Eddie instructs, squeezing his hand back. “Upstairs, second door on the left. Bathroom is next to it, if you need.”

“_Eddie_,” Myra calls, “are we talking or what?”

“It’ll be fine,” Richie half-promises. _Half_ because he doesn’t know. He’s never had to ask for a divorce before.

Eddie shrugs, lets go of him, and pads into the other room.

Myra’s voice travels as she says, “You didn’t take your shoes off,” and Richie notices there is a place for them, all of them, by the door. There are slippers, and sneakers, and dress shoes, and everything in between, all lined up in nice little rows.

“Yeah,” Eddie replies. “I’m not going to.”

This seems like an important distinction.

Richie takes the stairs two at a time, hoping to avoid the breaking point. Mrs. K always needed some time before she got there, but there is no telling what her doppelgänger is capable of.

He shuts the door, throws himself on the bed, and hears Myra, shrill and indignant. He can hardly hear the words Eddie is saying, though the low cadence of his voice—that’s impossible for Richie to miss.

Myra’s sickly-sweet voice rises like heat when she says, “Eddie, dear, I think I misheard you. You know I can’t understand what you’re saying when you mumble.”

“I didn’t mumble,” Eddie says, enunciating each letter, hardening every syllable. Richie hears him perfectly from up here, which means Myra hears him, too. “You know exactly what I said.”

Myra sighs, like she’s tired, like Eddie is exhausting. The sound stings, like Richie’s gotten a paper cut. He checks his hands to make sure he hasn’t. Myra says, “So, you want to do this again, then?”

Richie grimaces and calls Bev.

(_Again?_) 

* * *

“Hello, darling,” Richie greets, laying the British accent on thick, “have you forgotten me yet?”

“I could never,” Bev says. She sounds happy, which makes Richie smile up at the ceiling. “This awful accent haunts my every waking moment.”

Richie guffaws and switches to something out of a western movie, makes his words come out nice and slow, like molasses. “Good to know you’ve remembered my voices but not me.”

“Can’t forget something that’s scarred you,” she retorts, on the edge of a giggle, which peters off abruptly. He can hear it in her breathing, how it’s changed, that she’s realized she’s wrong. You _can_ forget. They’ve all forgotten, some more than others.

Some have a lot worse to remember than Richie has, past the alien evil posing as a clown and the bullying he’d faced, homophobic and otherwise. Bowers really hated his glasses.

Bev is one of those people, he recalls.

“Have you liked _any_ of my voices?” he asks, pulling them out of this limbo they’re in. “I’ve made you laugh plenty. I took you to the movies!”

Bev sighs, fond. “You’re funny,” she admits, “but only when you’re being yourself. The only time I really enjoy your set is when you make those jokes your own. There’s a difference.”

He’s surprised she knows anything about that. “You’ve seen my stand up?”

“Yep. In person, too,” she replies. “Tom would have hated it if he found out I went, and I don’t think he ever did—I mean, I would _know_ if he did”—Richie frowns here, not liking the implications her tone provides, not liking the assault of bruises on pale skin his mind offers up to him—“but I had to go. I was compelled. I was drawn to you, I guess.”

“Like the books,” Richie suggests. “We’ve all read at least one of Bill’s books. I wasn’t even interested in the werewolf one, but I read it anyway. Cover to cover, all in one night.”

“I think we’ve always been trying to find a way back to each other,” Bev muses. He can imagine her running her fingers through her hair, tucking it behind her ear. He can see her so vividly, Bev, it’s like she’s right across from him. “The magic was enough to make us forget the horrors, but not enough to make us forget the love, I think.”

“Aw, Bev,” Richie says. “You love me?”

“I love you all,” she murmurs. “All my little Losers.”

“Not so little now.”

“No,” Bev agrees, “but still the same. Still mine.”

Richie’s chest warms. He coughs to stop it, but it only travels further until he feels like he’s bundled up on a blustery morning, sitting by a fire. “So, Miss Marsh,” he begins, mimicking a news anchor, “tell me how recluse Ben Hanscom lives.”

“He lives in the middle of nowhere,” Bev tells him. “The entire drive here, my phone couldn’t locate me. Only when we got in his house, which is _huge_, by the way, was I able to even reconnect to the Internet.”

“Okay, I don’t care _where_ he lives,” Richie says. “I want to know about the inside. He’s a hotshot architect, is he not, what kind of digs does he have?”

“Very spacious, a lot of glass,” Bev provides, and that’s all. “Enough room for you, Eddie, Bill, and Mike to stay comfortably when you come to visit.”

“_Bev_,” Richie whines.

“You can get a grand tour when you get here,” she says. “Come on, I have to get you to visit somehow, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Richie replies, “because I don’t want to spend time with my best friends _at all_.”

Bev laughs, and Richie picks at the comforter beneath him, trying to pull thread out of a stitch. He moves to say something else, to kill time, when the conversation underneath him grows loud again.

Eddie’s said something Myra doesn’t like, and Myra squeals, “You can’t just _leave_, Eddie, you can’t survive alone, _I _can’t survive alone! You’re so _fragile_—”

“What’s that?” Bev asks.

Richie lets go of his cheek, which he hadn’t realized he’d been chewing, thinks _what the fuck, Eddie’s fragile? Since fucking when_, and says, “Eddie leaving his wife.”

“The one who acts like his mom,” Bev replies. A statement, not a question. Again.

“Yeah.” Richie wasn’t aware Bev and Eddie have talked about this. Where was the time to talk this week? The only opportunity Richie had was in the fucking _sewer_, and there wasn't much talking going on there. “That’s the one.”

Bev hums. “And you’re there,” she says. “In the apartment?”

“In the guest room.”

Downstairs, Eddie is just as intense as Myra. “First, I am _not._ I am not some—some _dog _or a _child _you can play house with, I am a _person _and I am tired of you, and my mom, and everyone else making me out to seem weak because it benefits _you_.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath that Richie can hear up here; he’s working himself up. Richie vacantly wonders if he’ll need his inhaler, then remembers he doesn’t have asthma, just deep-seeded anxiety and probably a panic disorder (_thanks, Mrs. K_).

Myra lets out another wail and this one is so fake, so manipulative, Richie’s fingernails dig into the skin of his palm. He’s lucky he’s holding his phone with the one Eddie picked glass out of or else he’d be bleeding all over again.

Eddie counters that with, “Can you just _calm down_ and listen? I’m trying to be honest here. You deserve—”

“I deserve better than this, _Edward_,” she snaps, and on fucking _God_, Richie is transported to the Kaspbrak family kitchen, sometime in the late eighties. He can see the cabinets behind his eyelids, stocked with medications neither Eddie nor his mother truly need. The table, too, stocked with nuts and fruits and mason jars of teabags, and the counter he used to sit on even though Sonia hated that he did it. _Especially _because Sonia hated that he did it.

Even Bev whispers, “_Shit_,” after his name is used, and Richie asks, stupidly, if she heard that.

“You will be _fine_,” Eddie tells her, words sharp and swift, weapons in their own right. “You have been fine. This marriage is—it’s—Myra, it’s a fucking _sham_, don’t you see?”

Richie listens to Eddie, listens to Bev breathe, fists the comforter. Bev says hi to Ben, tells him Richie is on the phone, and then Richie says hi to Ben, but most of his attention is down in the kitchen, where Eddie is. He can’t split it perfectly down the middle (_what else is new?_).

“You always say that.” Myra is halfway to hysterical at this point, so maybe that’s not true. Maybe there’s something different here now. “You always say that,” she repeats, “and you never leave. You always stay. It’s not a sham. It’s fine. This is—it’s working. You know it is.”

“Myra, it’s not,” Eddie replies. “It never was. We don’t even—we’ve never—a marriage is not this. We should be able to—we have been pretending for _five years_—” 

Bev asks, “What are your plans, Richie?”

Richie says, on autopilot, “I don’t know. Going to L.A., I think.”

Ben pops up again, and Bev says _getoffameeee! _“Got any new material?” He’s laughing as he asks, then, “Get your fingers out of my _mouth_, Beverly, _gross_.”

“Kinky,” Richie says automatically. “Gonna write about my disgusting friends kissing in quarry water. Changing names, obviously.”

“Okay,” Ben says, “but you gotta write about _my_ disgusting friends kissing in a _sewer_.”

“You have friends, Ben Handsome?”

Bev laughs. It’s such a nice sound. 

“Yeah, their names are Eddie and Richie, and they’re the fucking _worst_,” Ben replies. “We’re in the middle of a life or death situation with the murderous clown from our childhood, right, are you imagining it, and they’re _making out_ on the _ground_, Eddie on top of Richie, and it’s so fucking outrageous you almost think you’re making it all up, but you’re not, because it’s happening right there, and honestly it’s not the weirdest thing you’ve seen so far that day alone, and—”

“Wow, Ben, continue to destroy me, why don’t you,” Richie interrupts loudly. “_January embers, my heart burns there, too, _what-_fucking_-ever. You’re not better than me.”

“But,” Ben says dramatically, “I am, aren’t I?”

“Ben, be nice,” Bev chides. “Richie is just as great as you. He took us both to the movies once, remember?”

“Best movie of my life,” Richie says. “The best movie partners. Really knew the correct way to share popcorn, unlike certain people who are currently a floor beneath me, and I am not talking about Myra, FYI.”

“Mhm,” Ben replies, dragging it out, “sure, but there better be more than your two friends kissing in quarry water in your next set, Tozier, or there will be hell to pay.”

“Of course there will be, New Kids on the Block,” Richie responds. “There’s a clown, and, like, a bunch of murders, and, _oooh_, can’t forget about the breakout at the psych ward, or those two weirdos you just mentioned—hey, you never told me you _saw_.”

Ben snorts. “Everyone saw, Trashmouth. It was in the middle of the cavern. You’d just been Deadlighted. You think we didn’t _pay attention_?”

“It took you so long to even get to me!”

“You were _eating Eddie’s face_,” Ben says, scandalized. “Why would I want to go near that?”

“The romance!” Richie insists. “You stole my bit, didn’t you, Benverly? Had to one up me and kiss in the goddamn quarry. You do anything else in there? You were underneath for a pretty long time, who knows what those architect hands can do—”

“Beep, beep,” Ben says. Bev is muffling her laughter, but Richie hears it anyway. “You are terrible at romance if you think that was romantic, Richie, and I went to school with you all, if you remember, so I am _traumatized,_ thanks. Bev is the only one here who has no idea how you and Eddie were back then. Let me sum it up for you, babe, they were disgusting.”

Richie wrinkles his nose. Disgusting is not how he remembers it. Granted, he was the one who wanted it, so perhaps he is biased. “Did you just call the great Beverly Marsh _babe_, Hanscom? Bev, Bev, tell me you aren’t one of those girls that wants to be called babe. I’ll never recover if you do.”

“It’s okay if Ben does it,” she says, pretty timidly for the girl Richie has always thought should win the superlative for _Most Badass._

“_That’s _disgusting,” Richie says, pretending to vomit. He makes himself choke, lets out a strangled _bleeeeeeeech_.

“No,” says Ben, who isn’t even concerned that Richie might _actually_ be vomiting, how _rude_, “what’s really disgusting is—”

But Richie doesn’t get to find that out. Myra comes in full force again downstairs, and her voice fucking thunders, or at least that’s how it sounds to him, drowning Ben out. “Does this have anything to do with _Richie Tozier_ being in my house?”

Again, she says his name with unbidden disgust. Again, Richie is reminded of Mrs. K, who always said _that Tozier boy_, like she hadn’t known him for years. God, he loves feeling fifteen years old, has he ever mentioned that? This is super.

Richie expects Eddie to respond like a fully functioning adult who is being kind to the woman he no longer wants to be married to, but as it turns out, Eddie is also feeling like a snotty teenager, and he embraces it. He says, “Of course it is! It’s always been about Richie—it has been since I was twelve! I am _gay_, Myra. Stop pretending that I’m not, stop pretending you can _change_ me.”

“Okay, my disgusting friends,” Richie says grandly, like his heart is not leaping out of his chest, trying to break free, “I believe I have to go.” 

“You’re not, Eddie, it’s just a phase, you’re just confused,” Myra whines, voice a shrill squeal, “and what are you going to do? You’ve never once mentioned him before and now you’re just going to—to follow him around? He’s a _comedian_, and he’s not even funny. You said so yourself.”

Richie doesn't hang up, tightening his hold on the phone.

“He _is_ funny,” Eddie retorts vehemently. “I’m allowed to say shit like that because I’ve been in love with him since middle school, I just forgot until I saw him again, and now that I know he’s not married, I want a divorce!”

“_Eddie_,” Myra insists, “he is a _comedian_”—and she stresses this point again, like this is not common knowledge, like Eddie is not understanding something so simple—“he cannot take care of you like I can, you are not thinking logically, you’re letting your—letting other parts of your body besides your brain think for you—”

“Say it, Myra, say it,” Eddie cajoles, egging her on. He’s getting like he always does in a fight: can’t stop, won’t stop, needs to win.

Richie knows when to back down, has tested the waters, has pushed as far as he can until he gets punched in the face or kicked in the shin. Myra, without experience, does not, which makes it worse. Richie should go downstairs, he should, but Eddie said not to interfere, even if it upset him. Richie’s not upset, not really, but he is mad, kind of nervous, kind of—he doesn’t really like listening to Eddie fight with anyone, even if he enjoys getting into fights with him himself.

“Just say _dick_, Myra,” Eddie exclaims. “Tell me I’m thinking with my dick. You wouldn’t be wrong. It’s not hard to say it. It isn’t. I don’t know why you’re holding on to this so tightly, we don’t even—we have never slept together, we hardly, if ever, share a bed, and most of the time we don’t interact when we’re in the house together. This is a convenience, and I deserve better, and you deserve someone who will love you, because I don’t. I’m sorry, Myra, but I don’t, and you’ve always known that.”

_Eddie talks so fast_, Richie thinks, and he wonders if Myra is comprehending anything he’s saying. It goes by in a flash, words running into each other, some slowed down and stuck there for emphasis, and Richie hears it all. Ben and Bev, who know the real Eddie, not this _Pleasantville_ black-and-white version of him, hear it, too, all the way in Nebraska or whatever hick town Ben’s laid roots in. Omaha?

“_And_,” Eddie says, loudly, voice cracking with the intensity of it. “A relationship is not about who can take care of who, literally it is _not_, you are not my mother, you do not have to—to _baby_ me. A relationship is about who you want to spend every single day with, who you want to wake up next to, who you trust and love and want to be with outside of it feeling like an obligation. Without it feeling like a _chore_!”

Richie lets out a very long, “_Uhhhhhhhhhhhh_,” and then tells Bev, or Ben, he doesn’t know who is there, “I really think I should hang up now.” His whole body is vibrating, nervous energy making his knee bounce.

Bev says _honey_, and Ben says _Rich_.

Eddie says, “This whole marriage has been a chore, and it won’t be with Richie. So, yes, I am leaving you for Richie Tozier, who is a comedian, and it doesn’t matter who can take care of me, because I’ll take care of me.” He stops, says quieter, though still loud as hell, “I really didn’t want to yell.”

Myra doesn’t say anything, but Eddie sighs, exasperated, so who really knows what’s going on down there?

Richie doesn’t, but he squints at the floor like he can see through it, and misses everything Ben and Bev say to him. He thinks they’re trying to comfort him, trying to distract him, but he doesn’t stick around to figure it out. He presses his thumb to his screen blindly and hangs up on them. He pushes himself up, grips his phone with white knuckles, and decides he’s done sitting in this room.

There’s a vibration in his hand, which causes him to look down, though he’s not actually interested, and Bev’s text lights up with a singular heart. Ben follows not shortly after, then Mike, and Bill, even though they have no idea why Bev sent it in the first place. Richie blinks, swallows, and shoves his phone in his pocket. He appreciates them, but he doesn’t want to think about how there should be another heart in that chat, and how there will never be, because Stan is dead. It’s always there, that thought, tucked away in the back of his mind.

He focuses on the other thing.

He can feel his heartbeat in a million and one places. Behind his eyes, in his throat, in his ears, his kneecaps, the balls of his feet. He doesn’t know what he thinks was going to happen here, but the possibility of having to stay in this guestroom for eternity crossed his mind. He can’t believe it actually happened, can’t believe Eddie said it, can’t believe any of what he actually said, to be honest. He hadn’t realized how nervous he was until he’d hung up with Ben and Bev; their presence had calmed him down significantly.

Part of him doesn’t want to leave this room, but most of him does. He pulls the door open, hard and fast, and—

There is Eddie, standing at the threshold, arm half-extended like he was about to knock. His hair is mussed, like he ran his fingers through it one too many times, his eyes are bright and wild, and his cheeks are flushed. He looks, honestly, like he did when he hovered over Richie in the sewer, fresh from throwing a spike into Its mouth. It makes Richie’s heart pulsate wildly; he thinks it gets caught in his throat. That’s the only reason he’s staring like this.

Eddie’s car keys swing from his index finger; there’s a dumb keychain that’s only purpose is to differentiate this key from a bunch of others, and Richie makes a note to buy him ones that are actually, you know, _cool_. He thinks of the ones he has. They are decidedly not cool, but one of them is a dragon, so.

“Ready to roll?” Eddie asks.

“Uh,” says Richie, “yes? Are you?”

“Mhm,” Eddie says. “All good. All handled. I am literally taking nothing but the suitcases and my car, which I will probably just sell tomorrow morning. I am not driving to California.”

Richie wipes his palms (_sweaty_) on his thighs. “We don’t have to. We can—we can fly. It only takes six hours.”

“As opposed to three days.”

“Yeah, it’d take, like, three—”

“No, I know it would take three days. I looked it up,” Eddie interrupts. “That’s assuming we make good time and don’t oversleep or get into any bad weather. Traveling by plane is better. Safest way to travel, too.”

“Oh, right, okay, of course you know this.” Richie bobs his head. Nerves travel up his spine, settle in his face. He feels like laughing. He feels like telling a joke about Eddie’s more neurotic tendencies but doesn’t. He’s got one there, with Eddie and a Pro/Con list, writing down reasons to leave his wife and run off with Richie. He’s got him making a Venn diagram, and in the middle circle of Myra and Richie, he writes _annoying_.

They leave as soon as they come, unable to stick in his brain or roll off his tongue. He can’t say them, not when Eddie is looking like _that_ and saying things like _it would take three days_ and now planning his life around Richie’s.

He’s researched this. He’s thought about this. He wants this. It’s not just Richie wanting and wishing and yearning.

It’s real.

Holy fuck, it’s _real_.

He throws his hand out, gestures to the room. “Do you need anything in here?”

Eddie’s brow furrows. “This is the guest room.”

“Yes.”

“All of my things would be in my bedroom.”

“Right.”

“I packed half my closet and all the medications we had in the bathroom,” Eddie tells him. “I’ll call my job—I can probably get relocated somewhere in California—and I’ll call the bank, and my accountant, and everywhere else and I’ll get all the other shit I need mailed to me. I don’t need anything here, Rich, I told you that already.”

Richie cranes his neck to stare at Eddie on his level, several inches closer to the ground. “Are you sure?”

“_Yes_, I’m sure,” Eddie snaps, exasperated. “Please can we leave? I can only handle Myra’s fake crying for so long before I explode.”

“Is she crying?”

“She does this when she wants to win an argument,” Eddie says. “It normally works because it annoys me.”

“Is it fake?”

“Of course it is. She does it to prove a point.”

“And the point is?”

“The point is that _I want to leave, Richie_.”

“Right, okay, cool and fine,” Richie says. “I am ready.”

Eddie peers up at him. “Are you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You’re acting weird.”

“I’m always acting weird.”

“Weirder than usual.”

“You just remembered me,” Richie informs him. “How do you know what my usual weird is?”

Eddie levels him with a look.

Richie breathes out a sigh. “I’m just nervous,” he says. “I’m—” _Excited? Scared? Worried this is too good to be true? I could cry right now probably. _“It’s not very normal for me to get the things I want. You’re sure?” He asks this again because he has to, and because he has no control over his mouth.

“Yes,” Eddie answers, the impatience easing away. “I have never been so sure about anything before, except for maybe getting diseases in the gray water.”

“So you’re sure about me and sicknesses?”

“Yeah, what else is there to be sure about?” Eddie asks sagely. “All there is is death and how I feel about you. Oh, and taxes.”

“Me,” Richie says, “death, and taxes. Those are your big three?”

Eddie nods. “Let’s _go_, okay? I can show you how sure I am when we’re out of his hellhole. I’m not doing anything here when Myra is downstairs, probably calling every person she’s ever known to tell them what a horrible person I am.”

“Does she do that?”

“Oh, yeah, big time,” Eddie replies, and he doesn’t sound too peeved about it. “She can spend hours talking to her sister about all the things she hates about me.”

Richie blinks, zips his jacket up halfway, and reaches over to flick the light switch. The room goes dark. “And you stayed with her why?”

“Convenience,” says Eddie. “Familiarity. It really made no difference to me what she said. It’s not like I was crazy about her either.”

Richie makes a confused noise in the back of his throat, but follows Eddie all the same. He wants to ask things like _do you need to bring more jackets_, or _did you really fit half your closet in those two suitcases_, or _is it the best idea to leave everything that’s made you comfortable behind just to be with me?_ He keeps his mouth shut, though, which is surprising; he’s gone two for two so far. Perhaps Trashmouth has finally gotten the message.

Eddie stops suddenly on the steps, and here it is, here’s the moment Richie’s been waiting for. He turns, shorter than Richie than ever, and looks up at him. “I also hadn’t met you again,” he tells him. “If we’d bumped into each other anywhere else, I’d leave with you then, too. You’re it for me. Sorry.”

And then he’s heading down the stairs again, like he hasn’t just shattered Richie’s ribs, taken his heart, and stored it in his chest, right next to his own, where they beat in sync.

Richie breathes noisily, drained, and stomps down to the first floor. His footsteps ring in the silence of the house, which looms oppressively around them. Eddie doesn’t notice—is this his normal here?—and focuses on fiddling with the keyring again. Richie watches him, hands in his pockets. He removes one key, two keys, three keys, four, dropping them unceremoniously on the table with the vase they almost broke earlier.

Myra’s cries pick up. She’s noticed they’re downstairs.

Richie winces, but Eddie rolls his eyes. “Ignore it,” he says. “She’s reaching now.”

“It’s so uncomfortable,” Richie admits.

“I know,” Eddie says. “That’s why I always give in. My mom could do the same thing.”

“I remember.” Richie kicks lightly at the suitcase closest to him, pulls his shoe along the hardwood floor so it squeaks, and repeats. “I always wanted to run in the opposite direction when your mother cried. It was so different from what she usually did.”

Eddie huffs a laugh, even though it’s not funny. He sounds hollow. “She had to spice things up or else I’d figure out how to stop her from controlling me. Personally I hated the guilt trips the most.” He tosses a thumb behind him, towards the kitchen. “She does those too. _Eddie, you can’t just leave, what will I do without you_?”

Richie isn’t sure who he’s imitating.

“So.” Eddie clears his throat, figuratively wiping himself clean of the situation. “I mentioned my car is a wreck, right? I got into an accident when Mike called and never bothered to take her in. She still runs, though, which is all that matters tonight.”

“Sure,” says Richie. “Where are we going?”

“As far away from here as we can get,” Eddie answers. “You take one suitcase, I’ll take the other.” 

* * *

Richie looks at the car, looks at Eddie, looks back at the car. “You and I have very different definitions of wrecked, dude.”

“Oh, fuck off and get in or I’m leaving you here,” Eddie threatens, unlocking the doors.

Richie thinks about Myra inside, fake-crying and complaining to her family members, and scrambles into the passenger seat. 

* * *

The door sticks, by the way, and Richie has to climb over the console and get out Eddie’s side when they pull into a parking spot outside a Marriott.

Eddie snickers while Richie cracks his back.

Richie shoves him so hard he almost eats shit.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh, what's this? a lowkey sex scene and some semblance of plot?

“Do you have an airline preference?” Eddie is spread out on the bed, propped up on his elbows, squinting at his phone. His charger is literally, like, a mile long, plugged into the socket across the room.

Richie shakes his head, realizes Eddie isn’t looking at him, and says, “No.”

“_No_?” Eddie repeats incredulously. “Really?”

“Yeah, I just get on planes,” Richie replies. “As long as I get from point A to point B, I don’t really care.”

“JetBlue is superior,” Eddie says. “I don’t mind Delta, but _fuck_ American.”

“Is this your way of saying you want to travel JetBlue?”

“When do you want to leave?” Eddie asks. “I’d rather not have to wake up at the crack of dawn, but if you’re an early morning flyer, that’s fine with me. I’ll just sleep on the plane.”

“Do what you want,” Richie tells him. “You’re the one uprooting anyway.”

Eddie makes a little humming noise in the back of his throat, almost like he’s not really listening, and continues to scroll through flight options, toggling between the various airlines he’s deemed satisfactory. If Richie’d been able to see, he’d find out that Eddie was only searching for seats with extra leg room, but he couldn’t, so he didn’t know.

Then, as if everything he and Richie discussed finally settled in his brain, he drops his phone to the mattress, links his fingers together, and looks up at him, the first time in maybe fifteen minutes. “You’re still being weird,” he notes.

“No, I’m not.”

“Rich,” Eddie says, “normally you have opinions.”

“I have plenty of opinions,” Richie replies. He’s got several right now, and they all revolve around Eddie. How he looks (_good_), how he packs (_like a marine_), how he took charge and booked the room downstairs (_the way he said one bed made Richie swallow so hard it hurt_), how he seems so comfortable to be here, with him, dropping everything he’s ever known (_is he sure?_).

“Okay.” Eddie rests his chin on his hands. “Tell me some, then.”

Richie blinks. “About what?”

“Anything.”

“I think Chipotle is overrated,” Richie says immediately, like word vomit.

Eddie laughs. “I’ve never been,” he admits. “Or to Moe’s. Or Taco Bell. I’m not really that sold on Mexican fast food.”

“There’s also your gluten thing.”

“There's a high chance I'm not allergic to gluten,” Eddie admits slowly. “But that doesn't mean I trust Chipotle. You’re telling me that’s good cuisine? I don’t think so. But I’m like that with all fast food, really, I’m not that into it.”

“Not even McDonald’s breakfast?”

“Nope.” Eddie pops the _p_. “Overrated. I can get better hash browns at a diner.”

Richie is scandalized. “I don’t think this is going to work out, Eds,” he tells him. “I eat McMuffins, like, twice a week.”

“Ew, _why_?”

“Why not?” Richie asks. “McMuffins are amazing.”

Eddie scoffs. “McGriddles are better.”

“_What_?”

“You know, with the pancakes, and the sausage.” Eddie slaps his palms together like he’s made a sandwich. “They mainly taste like syrup.”

“You just said McDonald’s breakfast was overrated.”

“I said the _hash browns_ are overrated,” Eddie corrects. “So are McMuffins, if we’re being honest here, and I am always honest.”

Richie snorts, which makes Eddie half-smile. Richie says, “I guess we can come to a compromise.”

“Good.” Eddie stares at Richie like he had in Jade of the Orient, like he can see right through him, to where all his secrets, all his deepest desires, all his wants, hide. It feels like he’s being laid bare, every part of him, and it makes Richie itchy. There is nothing he can do about it; there was never anything he could do about it. It’s like his body was never made for _him_, it was Eddie’s—his body, his heart, everything about him—from the start. “Because I have no alternate plans.”

Richie thinks of Eddie on the stairs, turning around. How honest he’d been. _I’d leave with you then, too. You’re it for me. Sorry. _

“You don’t have to make any,” Richie says quietly. Talking loudly would ruin the moment. “You’re it for me, too.” He pulls his gaze away, stares at the floor, brings it back up to hold Eddie’s.

He’d unlocked this hotel room door, opened his bag, and disinfected the whole fucking place. Told Richie, _Don’t you dare sit down, this place isn’t as clean as it could be_, and Richie had fucking—he’d _felt_ his heart flutter, he’d felt how much he loved him, right there in his sternum.

Now he adds, “I think that’s why no one ever wanted me. I never had enough to give them because I always wanted you.”

He watches Eddie’s face heat up, the splotches of pink rising in his cheeks and spreading to his collarbones. He flushes so easily. “Why are you so far away?”

Richie’s heart thuds. “I don’t know.”

Eddie pats the bed beside him. “Help me pick a flight,” he says. “Everything is expensive as shit, but what can you expect trying to book one the week you plan to fly out?”

“I think I may have frequent flyer miles somewhere,” Richie provides, “if that helps. Unless it’s American, then it doesn’t.”

Eddie repeats the gesture. “Come over here.”

Richie’s heart skips several beats: one, two, three, and tries to crawl into his throat. So, like, literally what the _fuck_, right?

Richie’s kissed this guy on three separate occasions already, slept in the same bed twice, and now he’s suddenly nervous to be close to him? _Now_? They’re best friends—or they used to be best friends, Richie doesn’t want to get into the semantics of it all. He knows Eddie, he’s always known Eddie, and magic and years separating them aren’t enough to take that from him.

Bev said she saw Ben and her heart recognized him, even if she’d been into Bill when they were teens. Richie took one look at Eddie and he’d just—he’d known. Bev thinks her heart was the one that went _oh, it’s you_, and that’s romantic, but Richie’s went _finally _the moment he saw Eddie. The moment he hit that gong, and Eddie turned to glare at him like he used to. He thinks he and Bev were on the same wavelength, just with different guys. Eddie’s the one he’s been waiting for. Eddie’s the one who can take all of this, who can take Trashmouth and love him; he’s been doing it his whole life.

Richie unfolds his limbs, kicks his shoes off, and clamors into the bed next to him. It’s comfortable, flat on his back like this.

Eddie’s head turns to watch him settle, eyes on him, then the door, then the television they never put on. His phone lights up with a notification he ignores.

“What are our options?” Richie asks. “Is it better if we just fuck around the city for a little bit?”

“Could be,” Eddie replies. He brings up the note he’d written himself, outlining airlines and prices and best times to leave for the next four days. “Depends on how quickly you wanna get out of here.”

“Not me, you,” Richie says. “Do you have to stay for divorce proceedings or anything? Do you have to talk to a lawyer?”

They weren’t looking at each other, but now they are, and Eddie’s gaze is almost bashful in the way he doesn’t want to maintain eye contact but adamantly won’t look away from Richie’s face. “I already talked to one,” he says. “My lawyer—I talked to him back when we were in Derry, after the dinner.”

“Did I experience that place differently than everyone else?” Richie asks. “How was there _time_ for anything other than destroying It?”

“Not all of us were trying to flee at any given time,” Eddie retorts.

Richie grins a little, remembers how he almost jumped off the fire escape before he found the stairs. Remembers how he’d seen the temple and stopped, remembered Stan. If it weren’t for Stan, he wouldn’t have any of this, as uncomfortable as some of it is—like honestly, will his heart fucking stop? He is too old to feel like this. It’s exhausting.

“I was walking to the pharmacy when I did it. Just wanted to give him a heads up that I was… that I was interested in…” Eddie swallows. “That I wanted a divorce and I wasn’t sure if Myra would make it messy or not, but I was willing to do whatever to make it as simple as possible.”

“So—”

“So they can just mail me the divorce papers and I’ll sign them,” Eddie finishes. “She can have whatever she wants.”

“What about what you want?”

“You’re a shit listener, you know that?”

Richie pushes himself onto his elbows—he’s never been a fan of Eddie looking down at him—and rolls his eyes. “I am listening, dipshit. I’ve heard everything you said.”

Eddie rolls his eyes right back, exaggerated and overdramatic. Richie hopes they get stuck like that, in the back of his head. Fuck, he sounds like his mother. “You aren’t retaining anything. In one ear, out the other, like a goddamn _child_.”

“Sorry I want to make sure you’re doing the right thing,” Richie grouses.

“None of us have done the right thing,” Eddie says ardently. His hand twitches like he wants to emphasize with it, slam it right down into his palm. He fiddles with the fingers of his left hand, where his wedding ring used to be. Richie wonders where it went. “We forgot what the right thing _was_. You think I would’ve married Myra if I’d remembered literally anything? You think I wanted to call my mom every fucking night for two years when I was in college? I got _put back_ on all those medications when I left, Richie, because I didn’t know any better. The blind belief I had in my mom—when I was away from here—”

“You’d have thought we’d all go the same place,” Richie says, gaze flicking to the ceiling so Eddie can compose himself. “Why didn’t we go to the same college?”

“I don’t think we all got into the same schools,” Eddie says, but he clearly doesn’t know either.

“No, Eds, me and you. Why didn’t _we_ go to the same school?” Richie’s head hurts while he tries to pull a memory from the vault: the clubhouse, senior year, college brochures, majors he wasn’t interested in. Eddie on the hammock, always on the hammock, ignoring all of that in honor of the newest _Thor_ comic he’d borrowed from Stan. “We talked about it. I know we did. Bill went—fuck, where did Bill go? Somewhere with a big deal writing program.”

Eddie thumbs at his phone screen, face still scrunched up. It’s hard to tell if it’s because he’s annoyed or if he’s upset. The look of it gives Richie flashbacks to the times Eddie’s cried—the far and few—and he pushes himself even further up to get into his personal space, to see if that’s the case.

He really does not need Eddie to cry. If Eddie cries, Richie will cry, and then this will be the worst hotel room he’s ever been in (and one time he spent the entire day before his first sold-out show vomiting into the toilet).

“You okay?” he asks softly, much too soft for everything he is. The question seems to echo in the silence that envelops them.

Eddie zooms in on a Delta flight for two days from now, Comfort+, leaving JFK at nine-thirty at night. It’s five hundred and something dollars per person. They’d land in California the day after. He clicks his tongue, considering, and then backtracks to the previous page.

“My mom chose my school for me,” Eddie says. He lets out a breath, full of nervous energy, and changes dates for the flight. “Without my permission, if that wasn’t obvious enough. She didn’t want me going so far away when she was sick.”

“Your mom was sick when we were in high school?”

“No,” Eddie says, “but she freaked me out enough to make me go to school in New York instead. Paid the deposit and everything before she even told me. Then she moved to Long Island. To be close.”

Richie frowns. “I don’t remember any of this,” he admits. “Did you tell me?”

“No,” Eddie murmurs. He doesn’t seem interested in the flights he sees for five days from today, but from what little Richie can see, they are somehow both less and more expensive than the other options. It doesn’t matter, though; he can pay for both of them as long as he can find a branch of his bank that won’t ask any questions about the amount of cash he has on him. “I was afraid of what you’d think. I was so good at standing up to her and making my own decisions and then right when the biggest one comes, I just—let her do it. I couldn’t tell you.”

“I wouldn’t have—”

“You would. Everything is always a joke about my mom,” Eddie cuts in bitterly. “At least that time you’d have been right about it.”

“Eds,” Richie breathes, apologetic and yearning. He’d have reorganized his whole life for him, doesn’t Eddie know that? Fuck California. If Eddie had said _hey, I decided to go to Midwestern,_ Richie would have pulled all the strings in the world to go there too. He’d go to school in Bumblefuck, Nowhere if he wanted to.

Look at him right now: breaking his own heart every time he asks Eddie if he’s sure he wants to be with him, to go to L.A., to drop everything and start over at their ages. It’s never too late to start over, is the saying, right, but they never tell you how hard it can be. _He_ needs to be sure _Eddie_ is sure, even if it makes him annoying, even if it kills him in the end because the answer changes.

He’d do anything for this guy. Has Eddie really never known that?

It’s a joke to change the mood, then it’s serious, then it’s action. Call Eddie a mama’s boy, then research how to transfer his deposit and his financial aid to fuckin’—where’d Eddie go?—NYU or whatever. He’d have done it. He would’ve, if he’d _known_.

Eddie doesn’t say _don’t call me that_, just sighs, losing a bit of the stiffness in his upper body. He’s always so tense, always so pink. He should do yoga. Meditate. Loosen up.

Richie shifts, pressing them together, and drops his chin to rest in the dip between his neck and his shoulder. He breathes again, Eddie, and it’s less staggered. Richie presses his cheek to his, feels more than sees Eddie close his eyes.

“We’re here now, aren’t we?”

“Twenty years too late,” Eddie whispers.

“Nah,” Richie answers back. “I think we’re right on time.” 

* * *

The fourth time Eddie and Richie kiss, it’s different.

For one, it feels more real, more lasting, than the other three. There’s no It, no blood-induced panic, no fear—there’s just Eddie and Richie, on a hotel bed in a Marriott in the middle of Times Square—which _why Times Square_? But it was where Eddie drove them and where Eddie threw down his credit card—and it’s slow, and it’s deliberate, and even though Richie can hear the honking and the general buzz of activity of New York City several stories down, it’s the best kiss of his life.

(You know, that he remembers.)

Eddie licks into his mouth, pressing him against the mattress, knees boxing Richie in. Richie responds enthusiastically, because of course, and blindly reaches up to take his glasses off. The intensity of Eddie’s mouth, face, tongue have them digging into his skin.

Eddie grabs his wrist, pins it above him, pulls away to say, “Leave them.”

“_Ohhhhh_,” Richie breathes out, amused, “do the glasses do it for you, Eddie Spaghetti?”

Eddie blinks down at him, pupils so large there’s only the tiniest ring of brown circling them. “Shut up, Richie.”

“No, this is important for me to know,” says Richie, because his mouth loves to run off even though it wants to do other things. “You like my glasses.”

“Obviously.” Eddie’s lips are swollen and red. “You’re wearing them.”

Richie is _delighted_. He sits up—or tries to, at least; Eddie pushes him back down. Leaves his hands on his shoulders. “Have you always liked my glasses? You used to call me Four Eyes when you were mad at me.”

“Never really was mad at you,” Eddie says. He looks from his eyes to his mouth, runs his tongue over his teeth. “I like your glasses. I like you.” He applies more pressure to his hands when Richie wriggles and Richie finds that he enjoys the manhandling. He always did, he thinks; the way Eddie and Richie used to wrestle as kids—Richie never won those, always just went… _limp_ and let Eddie knock him around, let Eddie climb all over him.

He inhales sharply through his teeth, cock twitching, straining in his pants, and struggles again. Eddie shifts to keep him in place and Richie, who may be seventeen years old currently, has no control over his hips, which buck up when Eddie gets close.

Eddie wets his lips, takes his gaze (burning) from Richie’s face and drops it lower. Richie repeats the motion because he has an audience now, and Eddie, the little shit, does the same. Richie’s jeans are too tight. He needs them off, off, _off_, please.

“Rich,” Eddie says. “Richie.”

“Mm?”

“What,” he starts, stops, repeats himself. “What are we doing?”

“At the current time? You’re just staring at me,” Richie answers. “I know I look devilishly handsome in my glasses, and that seems to really get you going, but come on, we could be—”

Eddie’s palm on his mouth shuts him up immediately. Sends a tingle down his spine. “Don’t be an asshole,” he says. “I meant, what are we doing? What do you _want_ to be doing? What… sorry, how far do you want to go right now?”

Richie licks his hand, and Eddie pulls away with a grimace, wiping his saliva off on his thigh. “What do you want to do?” he asks, knowing he, personally, wants to do everything, do it all. He wants to wreck these sheets so badly he’ll be embarrassed when the cleaning crew comes to strip the mattress tomorrow morning.

“I don’t have anything with me,” Eddie says. He frowns a little. “We’d have to use spit.”

“Kay, whatever,” Richie replies, and his whole body is fucking vibrating. He can feel his legs shake, tries to move them so Eddie can’t tell how much his arousal rules over him.

Eddie lets go of him, and it is only then that Richie realizes how hard he was shoving him into the mattress. He pops back up with the springs, his shoulders aching with a phantom pain, and wishes Eddie would keep pushing. Shove, shove, shove. Keep him in place with just his upper body strength alone, holy shit.

Eddie says, “You’re wearing too many clothes. Also this Hawaiian shirt is awful, why the fuck do you own it?”

“You literally cannot make fun of my wardrobe when you’re _on top of me_,” Richie replies. “That’s against the rules.”

“There are rules?”

“Yeah, number one: don’t make fun of my Hawaiian shirt. Number two: if I’m wearing too many clothes, then so are you.”

His little polo is so cute, though, so he can’t exactly tell him he hates it.

Eddie’s mouth quirks into one of those little half-smiles of his, and he shrugs, leaning back to tug his shirt over his head.

Richie watches, transfixed—it was so _easy_—and blinks. And blinks. And _blinks_. “Holy shit, dude, what the _fuck_,” he blurts. “You’re—how old are you? Why do you have the _abs _of a twenty year old? Have you showed Ben? Did you _compare them_?” His hand reaches out without his consent, lays his palm flat against his stomach. “I’m. I. No. I will not be taking my shirt off, sorry, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”

“R_iiii_chie,” Eddie whines.

“No,” Richie says immediately. “Do not say my name like that. Do not. Just. Put your shirt _back_ on, we can do this with them on, and—” He trips over his tongue, fingers feeling the grooves between the muscle here, and they aren’t as defined as Ben’s—Ben is, like, a secret Olympian, Richie thinks, not an architect—but they’re _so nice_. “What the f_uuuuuuu_ck. Dude. _What_.”

“I go to the gym regularly,” Eddie informs him, clinically, like he’s a doctor giving Richie a diagnosis. “Physicians recommend thirty minutes of light exercise a day.”

“Light exercise?” Richie repeats. “_Light_? You call whatever this is _light_? Dude. Eddie. Eds.” He’s babbling now; he can hear it, and he can’t stop it, but it doesn’t matter. This is. This is _little_ _Eddie Kaspbrak_, and he’s _ripped_, what the fuck. He runs his hand up Eddie’s chest, wraps his fingers around the back of his neck, and pulls him down. “Baby,” he says against his mouth, “you’re so hot, literally, I—”

He cuts himself off because he’s talking too much, and presses his mouth against Eddie’s, reveling in the way Eddie’d _shivered_ when he’d called him _baby_. Good to know.

He sucks Eddie’s lip, touches, touches, touches. Eddie’s skin is hot. Eddie’s skin is burning. “Closer,” Richie commands, tugging again, bringing Eddie’s jaw and throat within licking distance.

“Richie,” Eddie groans, a stark opposite to before. He lets him pepper kisses down his jawline to his collarbone, huffs when Richie bites down on his neck. “Take it off.”

“You do it,” Richie says, lifting his arms up. He doesn’t care anymore. He’s, like, a normal size for a forty year old, nothing to write home about, and he’s got, like, fan accounts he most certainly does not browse dedicated to how good-looking his fans think he is (and to his awful wardrobe choices, not gonna lie), so it’s not like he’s hideous. It’s just—he’s not _this_, but he wants skin contact. He wants to touch, to feel. He fills with it, the desire.

Eddie hums, rids Richie of the shirt he thinks is ugly, then pushes the one underneath it up, up, up, over his head. His glasses get knocked from his face, and Eddie rights those immediately, kissing Richie’s nose.

“That was adorable,” Richie comments.

“I am adorable,” Eddie replies. “People love me.”

“Yeah, that’s because they don’t know how fucking rude you are,” Richie teases. “I was in the car with you for less than an hour. There’s nothing adorable about the way you drive.”

Eddie grins. “You loved it.”

Richie rolls his eyes. “No. Yes.”

The smile stays on Eddie’s face as he lowers his mouth to Richie’s again, melding them. Molding them. Richie could kiss him forever, he thinks. He doesn’t _have_ to do anything else, though he wants to. If Eddie only wanted to kiss for the rest of his life, that’d be fine with him. Kissing is so nice. Kissing Eddie is the best.

Eddie presses hot, open-mouthed kisses down Richie’s throat to his chest, and down, down, down, tongue licking a stripe to his jeans, where he stops. Richie hates pants, has he ever mentioned that? They’re so unnecessary. Why is he wearing them?

“What do you want?” Eddie asks again.

“Whatever you want,” Richie says quickly. He has no idea what that means for him, but Eddie’s unbuttoning his pants and he’s kicking them off, and now Eddie is wearing too many layers, so he’s trying to get _his_ pants off—

“So impatient,” Eddie chides.

“You were the impatient one,” Richie retorts. “You can’t be comfortable in those.”

“I’m not,” says Eddie.

“Okay, _so_.” Richie grasps at Eddie’s zipper, pulls it down, shoves his pants to his knees. Eddie leaves them there, staring at Richie, writhing beneath him. He curls his fingers around the waistband of Richie’s boxers. “Whatever you do,” Richie blurts out on a breath, “I’m not going to last very long.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, “me either.” He rids Richie of his underwear, just enough so his dick springs out, long and hard and ready for him. He meets Richie’s gaze—hot, wanting, with an intensity Richie will remember until he dies—and then lowers himself down, taking Richie in his mouth without preamble, hollowing out his cheeks.

Richie’s lips part, and he's not sure what he's doing with it, what's coming out of it. Words? Moans? Sighs? He’s saying a lot of things, he thinks, and Eddie’s hand comes up to grip his, the other working the parts of him his mouth can’t reach.

He thinks he knows what he says. It’s what is running through his brain, and it’d be embarrassing if this was anyone other than Eddie.

(_I love you I love you I love you I love you_)

He comes on a sob when Eddie makes this soft, needy sort of keening sound in the back of his throat, squeezing Eddie’s hand so hard he might break fingers. 

Eddie swallows, and Richie catches his breath, only to shove him back, eager to return the favor.

* * *

“Have we done that before and I just forgot?” Richie asks.

Eddie rolls over, presses his sweaty forehead to Richie’s arm. It’s a wonder he hasn’t gotten up to shower yet, like is to be expected. He yawns. “No,” he says, but he doesn’t sound entirely convinced. “At least I don’t think so. We were kids, the most we did was—”

Richie has vivid memories of limbs intertwined on the hammock, of Eddie fit snugly against him, head beneath his chin. He’s got stolen kisses at three in the morning when the rest of the Losers are asleep in sleeping bags on the floor, Eddie and Richie sharing the bed above them. He’s got Eddie complaining about the dirt and the germs and the bugs at the Barrens, but still letting Richie press him against a tree, shoving his fanny pack out of the way, slipping his hand beneath the waistband of his shorts. He has himself, thirteen years old, after the worst summer of his life, carving _R+E _into the Kissing Bridge, surrounded by graffiti of homophobic slurs and something that looks oddly like Ben’s chicken scratch. He’s got Eddie sneaking through his window, and Richie sneaking through Eddie’s, hiding beneath covers and giggling into necks, hands wandering but not going too far, just to end up asleep on top of each other and almost always late for first period.

“I wanted, though,” Eddie continues. “My mom, she… I don’t know, you know how she was.”

“Yeah.” Richie runs his fingers through Eddie’s hair, and feels him sigh. His breath ghosts across his skin, the warmth such a contrast to the chill from the air conditioning that goosebumps emerge where he touches.

He is silent for a moment, lulled by the softness of Eddie and the way he fits so perfectly into his side, like he was made to be there. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.

Eddie mouths against him when he replies, “About my mom? No.”

“Not her,” Richie amends, and this is probably worse, who he wants to talk about. “Your wife. Myra.”

“Also no,” says Eddie. “What’s with you and ruining moments by talking?”

“It’s a gift,” Richie replies. “I just talk and talk and talk. I literally made a living out of it.”

Eddie snorts. “Hardly. You make a living talking for someone else. We can have this conversation again when you go up there with shit that’s actually relatable to you.”

“Good evening, New York City,” Richie announces, like he would if he were on stage at Radio City Music Hall. Eddie shakes his head, burrowing further into him, like he can mold them into one. “This past week, my childhood best friend remembered he was in love with me after twenty years of no communication and left his wife, and I just let it happen, because why not, right? Turns out I’m in love with him, too, and I’m nothing if not incredibly selfish.”

Eddie pinches him. “Don’t you dare use that.”

Richie jostles him, pushing him onto the mattress. “You know, you all want me to write my own material, but if I can’t use anything personal then what’s the point?”

“I’m sure there’s more to you than me.”

“You truly misunderstand me, Spaghetti Man,” Richie replies. “You are all I am.”

“What.” Eddie hovers over him, squinting. “That makes no sense.”

“You make no sense.”

“No, Richie, I’m serious,” Eddie retorts. “And don’t call me Spaghetti Man, I’m not some shitty, off-brand superhero. You are literally your own person.”

Richie breathes out noisily, then reaches out to prod at the furrow between Eddie’s brows. “I was but half a person, my dearest love.” He pitches his voice to sound like something out of _Pride and Prejudice_, like a plagiarized version of Mr. Darcy. “And now I am whole because you are here.” Seriously, he adds, “Most of my stuff would have to be about you. I can’t exactly sell Pennywise to the general public, and that’s probably the only interesting thing about me, besides me being gay.”

“Bi,” Eddie corrects.

“Sure,” Richie agrees, because technically that’s what he’s said, he supposes. Looking at Eddie, though, he can’t even find the right label for himself, which begs the question: How do you define what he’s spent the last twenty years doing? Wading through people and experiences and life, looking for something so specific it felt like he had the highest standards in the world? And he was looking for all these qualities that honest to God _annoyed _him, but when they’re wrapped up in this Eddie-sized package… it all makes sense.

“You told Myra you were gay,” he says. “You couldn’t even say it when we were younger, so I’m just surprised that you could, then, so easily with her.”

“I mean, yeah,” Eddie replies. He presses his mouth to Richie’s fingers when he touches him there. “I knew it would upset her, so I said it, but I’m not. I’m not gay, you know?”

Very eloquently, Richie says, “Uh.”

“Wipe that stupid look off your face,” Eddie tells him. “You’ll get stuck like that.”

“Too late. I always look stupid.” He crosses his eyes, and sticks his tongue out, leaning forward to lick Eddie’s cheek, right on the healing scar.

Eddie shoves his hand in his face, pushes him back. “Ew,” he cries, but now Richie is licking his palm, and Eddie is laughing so hard he can’t summon up the energy to be disgusted by it.

“You brush your teeth, right?” he asks, kicking his foot out when Richie all but sucks his thumb.

“Nope, never in my life,” Richie replies, feigning ignorance. “How do you do that? Is that what a toothbrush is for?”

Eddie pushes his hand back in his face, like he’s trying to suffocate him, and now Richie is the one laughing, trying to dislodge him. He remembers Eddie is ticklish—of course he is—and runs his fingers down his sides, light little points of pressure, down then up, and over and over, until Eddie is wriggling, struggling. He loosens his hold on Richie’s face, trying to curl into himself, away from the assault, and ends up losing his footing entirely, falling back.

“You’re so gross,” Eddie complains. “I can’t—why are you like this? Were you not nurtured enough as a child?” He looks torn, like he’s not sure he wants to do what he’s about to do, and grabs Richie’s face, bringing them nose to nose. “You _do_ brush your teeth, right?”

“You are such a weirdo,” Richie says fondly. “Yes, I brush my teeth. You’ve seen me brush my teeth.”

“Wrong,” Eddie quips, “I saw you use your toothbrush to clean the floor. Not the same thing.”

“Eddie, Eds, Spaghetti,” Richie recites, “sweetheart, baby, lovebug—”

Eddie squeezes his cheeks a little too tight. Maybe the pet names are really only a sex thing, okay.

“You just had my dick in your mouth,” Richie reminds him. “Why are you concerned about _my_ teeth?”

“You _licked_ my _wound_,” Eddie exclaims. “I don’t want to get it _infected_.”

Richie shakes his head, swallowing a laugh, and brushes his thumb over Eddie’s cheek. It is healing nicely; he doesn’t know what happened at the hospital, or when he even went, but the stitches holding his face together are dark against his skin. It no longer looks as alarming as it did the first time he took the bandage off. He’s gone about a day and a half without it now.

He wants to go back to the previous topic, before all the licking, but finds himself asking, “Did it hurt when you blew me?”

It doesn’t look irritated, but if Eddie wasn’t supposed to do that…

He should’ve asked before it all happened. It didn’t even occur to him. He didn’t even remember this thing until now. 

“No,” Eddie answers. “It doesn’t hurt at all anymore.” He averts his gaze, lashes casting a shadow over his cheekbones, and blinks back up. “Besides, I wanted to do that, so I wouldn’t have really cared either way.”

“Right, and I wanted you to do that”—_to do anything_—“so I also did not care until right now.” Richie squints at him, stares at the thing like he’s never seen anything like it before, and they’ve seen a lot of shit. “Are you positive? I think it looks pink.”

(It doesn’t.)

“M’fine,” Eddie mumbles, slapping Richie away. “You’ll make it worse if you keep touching it.”

“Okay.” Richie makes a mental note to inspect it the next morning. “Let’s rewind the tape a bit, then. When you say you’re not gay, what the fuck does that mean?”

Eddie settles on his shoulder, turning over. _He’s so pretty_, Richie thinks, a silhouette against the moonlight. _He’s always been so pretty._

“It means what it means,” Eddie replies. “I’m not gay. I don’t.” He pauses, a thoughtful furrow in his brow, and Richie wishes they’d pulled down the sheets if only to give himself something to do with his hands. To hide his body. Something. “I am not attracted to men,” he says, “like gay people would be. I’m attracted to you, which, as we’ve already discussed, is honestly baffling.” He waves a hand. “Look at you.”

Richie is confused, but not enough so that he can’t respond to that jab. “You _literally _called me hot at the airport.”

“Yes,” agrees Eddie. “For some reason I find your spindly legs and poor eyesight incredibly appealing. It’s something I’m trying to work on.”

“Yeah, well, you’re short and angry all the time, so.” Richie sniffs. “Don’t think you’re that much better than me.”

“You called me hot too,” Eddie points out cheekily.

“Heat of the moment,” he dismisses. “A lapse in judgement. You are alright at best.”

“Uh huh.” Eddie dimples at him. Richie’s body temperature spikes. His smile drops as he continues, “I’ve only ever been attracted to you. I don’t even remember how I ended up married to Myra. It just feels like one second I wasn’t interested in dating, and then my mom got real sick and set me up on blind date after blind date with all the young women she knew because she was scared I’d have no one to take care of me, and the next I was engaged and she was dead and then I was married.”

“You really never liked Myra?”

“I liked the tax benefits,” Eddie admits, “and sometimes we had nice conversations, you know, when she wasn’t so busy resenting me.” He shrugs his free shoulder. “She knew more than she let on, but she is so stubborn that she’d force this thing to work even if it killed her. Neither of us wanted to be alone, and we worked in a functioning, professional way, so… why beat a dead horse, you know?”

Richie does not, in fact, know and tells Eddie as much. “I have very rarely stayed in a situation I did not like.”

Eddie grins, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and he looks kind of possessed. Dead inside. “I’ve never made any decisions for myself,” he says. “The first one I made in a long, long time was choosing to go back to Derry. I could have ignored it, I could have told Mike _no way, thanks, good to hear from you, don’t call again_, but I—” He stops. In the light of the moon, Richie watches his cheeks flush. “I remembered you,” Eddie confesses, “not much, granted, a lot of it came back when I saw you, but I remembered enough to leave Myra crying in the kitchen and do what I wanted for a change.”

“And you packed half your closet and your entire medicine cabinet,” Richie says.

“It wasn’t just you I remembered.” Eddie shifts closer. Richie reaches out to run fingers along his spine. His whole body feels as warm as his cheeks look. “I remembered me, too. Mike said he was from Derry, and I—crashed my car, and I remembered who I used to be, and I didn’t want to be who I was. Am. I don’t know. So I packed as much as I could, told her I didn’t know when I’d be back, and thought that if you didn’t want me, I could probably bunk with one of the other Losers until I figured out what the fuck I was going to do.”

Richie palms Eddie’s back, pushes him the rest of the way, and hooks his ankle between his. “As if I wouldn’t want you,” he whispers. “I used to be obsessed with you when we were kids, do you remember?”

“Obsessed with being mean to me, maybe.”

“Pigtail pulling or whatever,” Richie explains. “I’ve never spent a moment of my life not wanting you. I told you that.”

Eddie rests his forehead on Richie’s chest. “You know Mike won fifty bucks off Bill that first night? They made a bet on how long it would take us to revert back to how we used to be, and I take, like, three shots, and fuckin’ tell you we should take our shirts off and kiss, Jesus Christ.”

“And look!” Richie calls out. “We did! How gay of us.”

Eddie huffs into his skin. “How very _Richie and Eddie _of us, I think,” he says. “Anyway, Bill said a day, Mike said three hours. It took one and a half.”

“It felt like we were in that restaurant for years,” Richie muses. “We should’ve all just gotten trashed at the Townhouse. Would’ve been easier.”

“Easier access to a bed, if nothing else,” Eddie agrees.

“If you are implying what I think you are implying, It would still be alive right this very second because I would not have left a bed that had you in it,” Richie tells him. “It’s not like we needed all of us anyway. The ritual was shit. The others could’ve easily made that thing cry all on their own.”

“They wouldn’t have known what to do if I hadn’t gone to get my token,” Eddie replies.

“Right, I forgot, you are our savior. Without you, we’d be nothing.”

“Oh, shut up, no one else had any bright ideas. We were just standing in a cavern like a bunch of dumbasses.”

“Okay, sorry, General Kaspbrak—”

“You wanted to hit it with a baseball bat again! What good would that do?”

“Concussions fucking suck, man,” Richie blurts out. “Enough blows to the head and It would’ve been putty in our hands.”

“You think you could _K.O. _an _ancient evil _by giving it a _concussion_?”

Simply: “Pennywise ain’t _shit_.”

“You ain’t shit,” Eddie shoots back, all of ten years old, it seems.

“Nope,” Richie agrees, because he’s not.

“We should shower,” Eddie says. His thumbnail outlines a heart on Richie’s hipbone. “We’re sticky and gross.” He doesn’t make any moves to get up, though, and Richie feels him spell out his name on his side, over and over. _Richie, Richie, Richie._

He copies him, _Eddie_ scrawled out in different ways: printed, cursive, all-caps, lowercase. “Later,” he suggests. He’s comfortable with Eddie on top of him like this, clinging to him like a koala. He doesn’t want to get up and lose it.

Eddie presses his mouth to the hollow of Richie’s throat, a little kiss without any pressure. “Okay.” He nuzzles his face into his shoulder. “Sleepy.”

“Wanna get under the blankets?”

He thinks about it, hugs Richie closer to him, says, “S’warm enough.”

Richie thinks he’s full of shit, but merely traces the grooves of his spine. “Alright.”

“Love you,” Eddie mumbles, soft and sluggish, and Richie’s tongue gets so dry and heavy that he can’t say it back until Eddie is most certainly already dead to the world.

He kisses the top of his head, tightens his hold on him (so small, so cute), and prays this never gets taken away from him (because it did once). 

* * *

He dreams of Stan.

More specifically, he dreams of Stan at Neibolt, that last time they were all there. Together. Lucky Seven. Losers, aged twelve and thirteen, maybe fourteen, Richie can’t remember how old they all really were.

He remembers Stan, though; how could he not, after the onslaught of memories he’s been hit with this past week? Tall and skinny, though not as lanky as Richie turned out to be, with a dry sense of humor and sarcasm pumping through his veins instead of blood. He’d been Richie’s best friend up until they all moved. Distantly, Richie wonders how he never noticed how he didn’t really have any friends past that—college and beyond, he’d been more or less alone.

In the dream, Stan is shrieking, crying in the gray water Eddie hates, swatting at the air like the portrait lady is still there, trying to suck his soul out of his face like a dementor from _Harry Potter_—which hadn’t come out yet in the dream, but present-day Richie knows all about.

“You’re not my _friends_,” Stan shouts, his voice echoing, which means Pennywise knows they’re here now, if he didn’t already. “You made me come to Neibolt!”

“_Stan_,” Richie gasps out, thirteen and scrawny. He blinks, and he can’t see, his glasses smudged with fingerprints—his, someone else’s—he’s always losing them somewhere. He pulls them off and rubs them on his shirt, but only makes it worse. “Stan,” he says again, because he has to save him, he has to help him up and bring him farther down the sewer.

He has to tell him he’ll make it out of this if he just trusts them, trusts Richie, and please, twenty-seven years from now, _don’t do it_. The words don’t come out, get caught in a net in Richie’s throat. He chokes as he tries to force them, coughing, coughing, _coughing_.

Richie looks around, whipping his head this way and that, trying to find Bill, or Mike, or Ben. _Eddie_—where is Eddie? He sees the right amount of legs, four pairs, but he can’t make out their faces, features blurred when he raises his gaze. He squints and he squints and he takes his glasses back off, but it’s like he’s forgotten what they all look like. They’re faded memories, pictures in yearbooks he’s never opened past graduation, stacked away in his parents’ attic somewhere, if he even kept them.

He sees the dirtied white of Eddie’s cast, Greta’s bullying altered by the red _V_ that disguises the _S _in _LOSER_, but what did that really mean anyway? Loser always meant family to Richie, because these guys—they were his, and they were losers, and it didn’t mean shit that people didn’t like them because they liked each other.

But whatever: He sees Eddie’s cast and he makes a grab for it, but Eddie’s fingers, so small beneath the plaster, shimmer out of existence. Richie’s hand falls flat against the cavern wall. When he looks down at it, he’s bleeding, the heel of his palm stinging.

“Richie,” Stan calls, “can you see me?”

He turns his head, wiping his palm on the front of his shirt, damp with sweat and sewage water, and waits for Eddie to reprimand him. To tell him he’ll get MRSA or something. It doesn’t come.

“Uh, yeah,” he says to Stan, though he’s frowning at Eddie. His eyes move to look at him, but he doesn’t do _anything_. “You’re right in front of me.”

“Okay, so the birds didn’t work,” Stan says, and there is blood dripping down his face, “but this does. Good to know.”

“The birds? Stan, what,” Richie blurts, voice high-pitched and shrill, irritating to his own ears. He goes to touch Eddie’s knee, but his hand goes right through him. “Why can’t I—”

Bill says something, or Ben says something, or Mike says something—whoever got them past this point last time does the talking, and Eddie follows after, footsteps making loud splashes. No one checks to make sure Richie is there, too.

Stan makes a sharp movement, and Richie expects him to go past him with the others, down the tunnel, to where they’ll find Bev, staring into the Deadlights. He does not. Stan stops in front of Richie, crouches down, asks, “Why are _you_ crying?”

The correct answer is _Because you were crying_, because whenever Stan gets scared so does Richie. Stan is never scared. When Stan is scared, that means something very, very wrong is happening. Richie doesn’t say that. Richie touches his skin, feels the wet track of tears there, and says, “I can’t see.”

“You can see, Richie,” Stan tells him. He plucks his glasses off his face, blows on the lenses, and wipes them on his shirt. “You’re just not _seeing_.”

Richie sniffles. “The fuck does that mean,” he retorts. “My glasses are all messed up. I physically cannot see.”

“Look at me,” Stan orders. “Can you see me?”

“No” is on the tip of his tongue. _No, Stanley, I can’t see you, you dipshit, I just said that_, but what comes out is, “Yes,” because Richie can see him. Stan is the only thing he can see in this fucking place and he’s not even wearing his glasses. _Stan is_.

“Good.” Stan tentatively touches Richie’s cheek, which makes Richie cry harder. He’s being so weird and it’s freaking him out and he wants his glasses back. “You need to wake up now,” Stan says softly. “This isn’t real.”

“I know, but I can’t,” Richie sobs. “I don’t want to be here.” _Not again. Never again. It is dead, why is It still haunting him? _

Stan fixes him with one of those looks of his, the one where he can see his every thought as if it were written on his face. “That’s not true, Trashmouth.” He’s still talking so quietly, so gently, like he’s trying to calm down a baby. It spooks Richie further.

“Why would I want to be here?” he demands. “I hate it here. This sewer sucks. I’d rather dream about Paul Bunyan again, or, or, or Henry Bowers trying to make me wear my insides on the outside. At least I wouldn’t be here in the dark.” 

“Richie,” Stan says. “I’m going to give you your glasses back, and I want you to look. I want you to really try to _see_.”

“I don’t understand what that means,” Richie admits. “Why can I see you without my glasses but nothing else? Why are you wearing them? You have perfect vision.”

Stan grits his teeth, jaw tensing, and runs a hand across his face. He jostles Richie’s frames, gets his stupid, bloody fingerprints all over the lenses. “_Look_,” he insists, “you need to _wake up_—”

“_Richie_!” Eddie yells, and his voice bounces off the walls until it is ringing in his ears. He sounds scared. He sounds like he did that other time they split up, and Richie regrets that, he really does, why didn’t he stay with Eddie? For someone who is obsessed with the kid, he is rarely near him. “_Richie, please, Richie_—”

He leaves his glasses with Stan and runs after the voice. He calls after him, tells him to _stop, listen to me, not Eddie, Richie, please_, but Richie will not. He’s always had a one-track mind when it came to Eddie, and it’s his name that races through his mind, fast and furious and disjointed.

_EddieddieddieddieddiedsedsedsedsedsedsEDDIEddieDDIEdsedsedsEDDIE_

Pennywise laughs. It is like nails on the chalkboard.

Eddie screams, and Richie can’t see, and he scrapes his knees, and Eddie is hysterical, and Richie is incoherent.

Somewhere behind him, Stan yells, “Don’t_ believe_,” and the rest of his sentence is drowned out by Richie shrieking, “_EDDIE, WHERE ARE YOU_?”

He closes his eyes and sobs, the darkness multiplying, thickening, and he wishes he had taken his glasses. He says Eddie’s name over and over, a chant of the only thought in his head, “EddieEddieEddieEddie.” It is quick and sharp and loud and his throat stings with the effort, like he is running a blade down it, slicing it to ribbons.

Hands frame his face and he flinches, not sure who is touching him—Stan’s painting lady or zombie Richie or gross vomit Eddie or, worse, the clown itself—but it is Eddie’s voice he hears, older now.

“I’m right here,” he says. “I’m right in front of you. C’mon, Richie, wake up. It’s not real. I’m right here. Look at me.”

He pulls him out of that sewer, coaxes Richie’s eyes open, where there is light and fresh air from the open window. He coughs and gasps, unable to catch his breath. Eddie’s face is a blur in front of him, brown eyes, dark hair, freckles, a dimple. That _is_ Eddie’s face, right? That’s Eddie, for real, and not someone who is going to look right through him and _leave him_ in dirty sewer water?

He can’t tell. He can’t _see_, holy shit, he can’t see, oh my _god_, where is he? Eddie? Where is Eddie? He starts, breath he’d worked so hard to catch escaping him again, and he feels himself stutter, stutter, stutter. He’s hyperventilating, he’s pretty sure. He’s wheezy. He’s—Eddie does this. Did this. He had an inhaler for this. But he didn’t have asthma, he just developed asthma because he was told he had asthma.

“Richie.”

He croaks, “Eddie?”

“Yeah.” Eddie is hesitant, tentative, as he strokes his cheek. He can _feel_ his relief, strong, cascading over both of them like an ocean wave. “Yeah, asshole, it’s me.”

Richie shudders a breath, heart ricocheting in his chest. “I can’t see,” he says. He _whines_. “Eddie.”

“Yeah, hold on.” He lets go of his face, and now Richie is very, very cold, freezing almost, without him. “Here,” Eddie says after a moment, brushing the hair from his forehead and fitting his glasses onto his nose. “Better?”

He doesn’t answer as Eddie comes into focus, and there are all those features he knows so well, sharper now. Richie sniffs, wraps both arms around him, and tugs him close.

Eddie lets out a little _oomph_ as he falls into Richie, but settles there anyway, tucked beneath his chin. Richie’s chest falls and rises with his. He is solid and real and not ignoring him.

“Hi,” Eddie whispers.

Richie feels awful and jittery, his only comfort being the warmth of Eddie beneath his hands. “Hi, cutie,” he greets.

He feels Eddie smile against him and maybe it is a testament to how freaked out he got that Eddie doesn’t try to fight him on the _cutie _thing. He hated it when Richie would call him that when they were younger: _cute, cute, cute_!

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks, lifting his head and resting his chin on his hands, flat against Richie. “You were pretty loud.”

“Oh, great.” Richie winces. “Did I… did I say anything?”

“My name, Stan’s name, that you couldn’t see,” Eddie lists off. “A lot of, like, I wouldn’t call it screaming, but. That’s what it was.”

Richie groans, stares up at the ceiling. Eddie hoists himself up, takes his chin in one hand, makes Richie look at him instead.

“It was Neibolt again,” he explains slowly, pulling words out like teeth, slow and painful. Unlike all of his other nightmares—and he’s definitely had many about this that he just couldn’t remember or had attributed to other things—this one is staying with him. He can still see that awful house, the sewer system, and that lady’s portrait when he closes his eyes, so he tries not to. He focuses on Eddie, on each blink, on his lashes, on the number of freckles he has, dusted across his cheeks. “Stan was talking to me, but I don’t really remember what he was saying.”

He finds that he means it, that he’s got a grip on the setting and the players, but all that remains is the unease that follows a dream like this. The general feeling of discontent, of confusion, and the desire to hold onto Eddie until he has to be pried out of his cold, dead hands.

“What about,” Eddie poses carefully, “what about me?”

Richie doesn’t _know_, but he hated it. Whatever it was. “We were separated,” he provides, because that much was true. It had been him and Stan for the most part, but he heard Eddie, and Eddie’d been there for a few moments. Of course he’d been. “I don’t like us being separated, and—”

Pennywise laughs.

“Did you hear that?” _He’s dead, Richie, he’s dead, you saw it. _

Eddie tilts his head, raising an ear. “Hear what?”

“Never mind,” Richie says. He’s not going to put that out into the universe on the offchance he can, like, summon that demonic clown back into existence. They’d crushed the heart in their hands, escaped the house. They _won_. Focus on that. “I’m just.” He shakes his head, cheeks against the pillowcase. “Must have some stuff to work out still. It hasn’t been that long since we left. I keep thinking it’s been weeks.”

“Just a few days,” Eddie supplies, “and it seems like we’re allowed to remember this time, so there’s that too. Years’ worth of trauma filling up all the blank spaces. That’s got to be a lot on any psyche.”

“Are you having a hard time too? Like, nightmares and stuff?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie replies. “I don’t think I dream. Or maybe it’s not interesting enough for me to remember the next day. If it’s any consolation, I think I’m afraid of bathrooms, so we can add that to the list now.”

“Rank them: bathrooms, lepers, vaginas,” Richie poses.

“Shut up.” Eddie laughs despite himself.

“No, do it,” Richie insists. “It’ll make me feel better.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “It won’t make _me_ feel better,” he says, “so no.”

“Fine.” Richie pouts, and Eddie drops his gaze to his mouth, staring at his lower lip. “Vaginas are definitely number one,” he shoots off, grinning at him. “Your mom’s must’ve ruined them all for you. Do you remember much of your birth?”

“_Stooooooop_.” Eddie pulls at Richie’s chin, making his neck lift uncomfortably. “You ruin everything for me actually—”

“Especially vaginas,” Richie cuts in.

Eddie wrinkles his nose. “I am not _afraid_ of vaginas, dickwad, and it would go bathrooms, first, since I was _stabbed_ in one, then lepers, because I’ve never actually met a leper.”

“You are afraid of disease,” Richie says wisely, “and germs. Not lepers, I don’t think.”

“And because you’re always dirty and covered in germs and one time you had the flu for two weeks straight, I’m afraid of you,” Eddie snarks back.

Richie sticks his tongue out and Eddie jerks back, away from it, only to settle back into him again. “Sure looks like it,” he coos. “So afraid of me.”

“Mhm, terrified,” Eddie agrees, leaning forward to kiss him. Richie leaves his mouth closed; he just woke up and Eddie definitely has a thing about morning breath and the bacteria that gets caught on the backs of teeth.

Eddie grunts a little when Richie doesn’t move under him and insistently runs his tongue over his lip, his own mouth opening up.

Richie mumbles, “Don’t you want me to brush my teeth?”

“Don’t care,” Eddie says. “You already contaminated me when you licked my face wound.”

“I’m really not that dirty,” Richie tells him. “I definitely shower more than I did when I was twelve.”

“You talk too much,” Eddie berates. “Shush.”

They’re silent for a while, after that, and the nightmare fades into the shape of Eddie’s mouth.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me:  
stan: hi nicole, FUCK your plot
> 
> (in which richie is very tired, eddie does some adult things, and stan shows up more than i originally planned.)

Eddie hands Richie the other half of his bagel, sesame seed with cream cheese and slices of tomato. Richie picks the tomato out, slaps it on Eddie’s knuckles, and takes a large bite.

“Would it kill you to eat a vegetable?”

“With my bagel? Yes.”

“Richie,” Eddie admonishes.

“Eddie,” Richie mocks back, but relents at the look he’s giving him, letting Eddie feed him the smaller piece. He makes sure to scrunch his face up in distaste.

(Believe it or not, Richie likes tomatoes.)

“Thank you.” Eddie wipes his mouth, then goes about ripping his half into tinier, bite-sized pieces. He’s always done that: sandwiches always in fourths, pizza slices cut down the middle (_It’s two slices for one_, Richie can hear him say), muffin tops removed from bodies, then split. He’s always eating, but also always sharing—if you’re Richie, or sometimes Bill, but very rarely the latter.

Mouth full, Richie says, “Welcome, sweet thang.”

Eddie mimics Richie’s previous veggie-induced disgust. “Absolutely not.” He pops a bagel bite in his mouth. Chews.

“Whatever you say, cutie,” Richie tries. 

“Better than Spaghetti.”

“Aaaaaaaaw,” Richie draws out, “you like being called cutie!”

Eddie’s cheeks flush. “I like being called anything other than Spaghetti.”

“Okay, Eds.”

“Can’t you just call me by my name?”

“Nope.” Richie drags a finger along his bagel, piling cream cheese up on the tip. He wipes it on the side of the plate. “I have no idea what it is.”

“You _just_ said it.”

“Spaghetti?”

“_Richie_.”

“I think that’s my name.”

“Richie, I swear—”

“Cutie, cutie, cutie,” Richie teases, if only because it makes the blush on Eddie’s face deepen. Makes his freckles stand out. Makes his eyes glitter. He likes watching the red travel from the apples of his cheeks down his neck in real time. It’s astounding how easily Richie can get Eddie’s body to do this.

He clears his throat, Eddie does, and tries to glare. It doesn’t work. “You’re a real asshole, you know that, right?”

“I’ve heard that once or twice,” Richie agrees. “Never from your mom, but, of course, she loved me so much, she would never—”

Eddie lobs a napkin at him. It hits him square in the forehead.

“Eddie, my _love_.” Richie gasps.

He smiles at him, toothy and full of shit, and Richie feels his heart stutter a beat against his rib cage. There is cream cheese smeared on his bottom lip. For such a neat freak, Eddie’s always been a messy eater.

“Looks like you know my name,” Eddie says silkily. “Wild.”

“You are _asking_ for it, Kaspbrak.”

“Asking for what?” Eddie challenges, leaning back. His tongue laps at the cream cheese, slow and tantalizing. Richie watches it, remembers where it’s been recently, and swallows. Eddie bites down now, teeth digging into the pink flesh, corners of his mouth quirking up. 

He knows what he’s doing, and Richie knows what he’s doing, and he’s still falling for it. Still has his heart hammering in his chest, blood pumping, _racing_. He blinks and he imagines himself surging forward to lick his mouth himself. “I am going to beat you up later,” he promises, biting the inside of his cheek.

“Yeah, sure.” Eddie doesn’t believe him, because of course he doesn’t. Richie’s never been able to really hurt Eddie; their fights, if you could call them that, always ended up with them cuddling. “Do it before we go to the Urgent Care, though.”

Richie says, “Nnnnn—we’re going to Urgent Care?”

“Gotta get this wound you’re so concerned about checked out.” Eddie pats his jawline, not willing to jostle the slice in his face. “I think the stitches can come out now.”

“Can’t you do it yourself?”

“Don’t want to risk it,” Eddie says. “Should be fairly quick, though.”

Richie’s mouth asks, “What’d Myra have to say about them?” before his head can catch up with him. He’s only a little bit curious; if she’s like his mother, she’d probably have thrown a fit, but Richie can’t recall that.

“Nothing,” Eddie answers. “She was too preoccupied with you being in the apartment.”

“Right, yes, because you are obsessed with me.”

“Am not.”

“Apparently you are. You know all my jokes.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “I know the one,” he allows, “but only because it was so stupid, and also because I was, like, forty-eight percent sure you were not straight.”

“Two percent more and you’d be correct about my sexual orientation,” Richie replies. “You know three.”

“I know the _premise_ of three,” Eddie responds. “That first one was, like. I watched it over and over because your delivery, for one, is shit, but two, you didn’t really look like you felt it. The joke, I mean.”

“Yeah.” Richie shrugs. “It’s not my favorite, but the straight white males love it, so.” He traces his initials in the cream cheese he abandoned on that plate. “They are probably not loving that picture of us, now that I think about it.”

“Bev loves it,” Eddie says. “She’s sent me various memes about it and has made it your contact picture in her phone.”

Affectionately: “Of course she has.”

Then, as if he just realized it: “You watched my special over and over?”

“Oh my god, no.” Eddie slurps at his iced coffee, which he takes with too much sugar and artificial flavoring. “I watched the opening over and over. It was so stale, like I said. Mechanical, almost. It got better after.”

“Hm.” Richie crosses off _masturbation jokes_ in his head like he was even planning on writing any of those. Dick jokes are only funny when it embarrasses and amuses the rest of your teenage friends in turn. “Thanks.”

“Sarcastic, or?” 

“No,” Richie says genuinely. “Thanks for the input.”

“Oh,” Eddie murmurs. He chews another piece of bagel, swallows, wipes his mouth. Richie watches his Adam's apple bob, kind of wants to bite it. “Yeah, no problem. Don’t even think about talking about any of my body parts in that joke’s place, though.”

“What if I talk about those little shorts you used to wear?”

Eddie frowns. “Which ones?”

“The tiny little red ones. They came up to, like, _here_”—Richie chops at mid-thigh—“and you’d pair them with too big shirts and your fanny pack in the summer. They were so cute.”

The frown deepens. “Are you legally allowed to talk about that? I was thirteen. My mom picked those outfits out.”

“I knew I liked your mom for a reason.” Richie sighs, wistful. “A real fashion icon.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to figure out if you’d go to jail or not.”

“What if I say something like _When we were teenagers, my boyfriend would wear these super cute, super short shorts and I really wish he’d wear them again now because I bet his ass looks even better tha—_”

“You thought my ass looked good in them?” Eddie asks, then backtracks when Richie opens his mouth again. “No, don’t answer that, also I’m not your boyfriend, you never asked.” He says all this in a rush, a long, run-on sentence.

Richie’s teeth clash when his jaw shuts with a startingly snap. The feeling travels to the back of his throat. His eyes meet Eddie’s, who looks like he’s trying really, really hard to maintain eye contact. He scratches at the skin beneath his ear furiously, like he’s some kind of dog. Ben has a dog. That dog is really cute, and Eddie is too, looking at him like this.

“You want me ask?”

Eddie’s got that bottom lip between his teeth again. He nods slowly. “Yeah.”

"You want me to ask," he repeats, "you to be my boyfriend?" 

The white of Eddie's incisors is such a startling contrast to the red of his mouth, deepening as he gnaws on his lip. He repeats himself. Says, "Yeah." 

It hits Richie hard and sudden that he has literally never asked this question before. Not to Eddie, when they were younger, because it was just not something they ever discussed; not to any other person who came after him, because he never wanted anything past the casual hook up. He’d never _dated_ a person before. A perpetual ladies’ man to his fanbase, using the term _girlfriend_ so loosely even they knew it wasn’t anything serious. How could it be, when this “girlfriend” of his was the butt of every joke? Some guys were like that, but Richie liked to think he’d have really nice things to say about his significant other. He may joke around a lot, but he’d never actually put anything in his comedy act that made Eddie uncomfortable, or painted him in a bad light. He wasn’t _awful_, contrary to popular belief. 

Self-reflection aside, Richie can’t get the words out. He feels them build up on the tip of his tongue, _do you want to be my boyfriend_, and they rearrange and stack themselves in different sorts of ways. Most of them don’t make sense, like _want boyfriend my_ and _be want do boyfriend you_, and he is so frazzled by them and the way he thinks that he misses his mouth opening and speaking for him.

_Trashmouth: 1, Richie Tozier: -16._

Eddie fucking _giggles_, and now Richie is the one blushing furiously. He bets he looks just like Ben did every time he saw Bev that summer: red as a tomato, literal fucking steam coming from his cheeks.

“What,” he blurts out, hard and fast. Does his voice crack or is that just him?

“Do you know how many times you tried to ask me that?”

“Once?”

He shakes his head, smile big even though his teeth don’t show. “Like, I dunno, four times. You never got it right.”

“Wait, I didn’t say _want boyfriend my_, did I?”

Is Richie horrified? Richie is horrified. Now would be an excellent time for another random fan to take a picture of him just _disintegrating in embarrassment_.

“Yeah.” Eddie laughs again. “I’m a big fan of the way you said _friend-boy_ with a serious face.”

“I wish the earth would open up and swallow me whole,” Richie declares.

“I said yes to all of them,” Eddie provides, stirring his coffee with his straw. “You’d think you’d be able to ask a simple question given how much you like to hear yourself talk.”

Richie slumps in his seat. “Turns out I don’t know _how_ to talk when it’s serious, which is—it makes sense, given that I don’t ever talk about anything serious, you know, no one wants to come to my show to talk politi—wait, did you say you said yes each time?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, “so now you can make real boyfriend jokes, but don’t talk about the airport or my shorts, at least not until I research if it makes you a child predator or not.”

Nervous energy has Richie’s feet tapping off-beat to the song playing above them in this kitschy hole-in-the-wall bagel place. “I hate that this table is separating us,” he blurts.

“You could move your chair,” Eddie replies, offhanded. “Do you think they’ll beam down and arrest me if I Google this?”

_Beam down?_ “Your assigned FBI agent might have a field day,” Richie answers. “Where do you think they come from, by the way, if they’re _beaming down_?”

Eddie waves a hand. “I dunno. You never know where the government is, right? They could be anywhere, just waiting for this really weird—you know what, I’m opening up a private browser. I really don’t want to be put on a sex offender list for _your_ joke.”

“You seem pretty adamant I tell it,” Richie observes. He digs his elbow into the table, props his chin up in his hand, watches Eddie with what he’s sure is the most lovesick expression he’s ever put on his face.

He types, then presses his thumb into the backspace button. Types again. “I looked great in those shorts,” he says after a moment, biting down on his thumbnail. “The world deserves to know.”

Richie’s heart bursts, he thinks.

* * *

_Beverly Middle Name Marsh_, Richie types.

_Richard Trashmouth Tozier_, she replies immediately.

He snorts. _Eddie made me ask him to be my boyfriend_, he sends, _so I did. He said yes. _

Bev sends an ugly keysmash and then about eighteen exclamation points. _We love to see it. Ben says “they weren’t boyfriends already????? Make sure there are five question marks”_

_Tell Ben just because he’s the prettiest man I’ve ever seen doesn’t mean I will take his attitude_. Richie spells prettiest wrong on three separate occasions before he gets it right.

Little dots on the left side of the conversation indicate Bev typing, so Richie waits, absentmindedly looking out the window. Eddie’s GPS is taking them to an Urgent Care, which shouldn’t be that far away, but they’re driving in the middle of New York City and that’s a bitch and a half, so it’s taking thirty minutes instead of twelve.

His phone vibrates in his hand, grabbing his attention again, and Richie reads Bev’s response, curious to what Ben, who always teeters on the edge of literally hating Richie and finding him endlessly amusing (as all good friends do), has to say.

_Look around, Richie_, it says, and that’s weird. There’s no reason for Bev to say that. _None of it is real. You can’t stay here. _

Richie blinks at the screen, the space right above his right eyebrow throbbing, like he’s got a killer headache. He rubs at it, squinting at the sun that shines right through the windshield, bright and blinding; his eyes sting, growing heavy, almost as if he’s been staring at a computer for too long.

Yelling roars in his ears, distant and tinny but unmistakable, and he thinks he hears his name, which can’t be right.

Eddie reaches over to pull the visor down in front of him, says, “Richie, your eyes already fucking suck, don’t make them worse,” and then snaps something rude at someone named Karen, who must be the car that just cut in front of them. Eddie steps on the breaks, arm shooting out to keep Richie from flying forward, and the confusion breaks.

A cloud moves in front of the sun and a group of children run past them on the sidewalk, yelling at each other. One turns around to shout, “Richie, _come on_!” at a tinier boy, who is too busy eating ice cream to notice how far along they’ve all gotten. Adult Richie watches the kid speed up, not quite walking but not quite running, and the other one who waited for him bumps their shoulders together.

“Didn’t know they still named children Richard,” he muses out loud, watching them until they’re gone, turning a corner.

“Huh?” Eddie asks.

Richie presses his finger against the window, at the spot the kids used to be. “One of them was named Richie,” he says. “I didn’t think that was a name still. It’s pretty old-fashioned, right?”

“If you’re asking me if you’re old, the answer is yes, holy _shit_, can I just _get to this Urgent Care, _Jesus_ fucking_ Christ—”

“You’re lucky you’re so cute or you’d never be able to get away with this road rage thing,” Richie comments idly.

His phone vibrates in his hand, grabbing his attention again, and Richie reads Bev’s response, curious to what Ben, who always teeters on the edge of literally hating Richie and finding him endlessly amusing (as all good friends do), has to say.

_Ben wants you to know the attitude is not real he is genuinely curious because you two act like you’ve been married for approx thirty years_

Richie says, _Yeah okay Ab Man u can suck it._

* * *

Richie is alone in the waiting room of the Urgent Care, absently thumbing through his emails. He hasn’t checked them since getting on that initial plane to Derry, letting them pile up. They’re just a bunch of spam, really: promotional emails from various stores he shops at, some work shit, one from his agent who basically threatens him to make it to his next gig and _don’t throw up this time, maybe_. Richie decides he’ll throw up on him instead of over the side of the fire escape just to be petty.

He exits out of that, endlessly curious that there’s nothing outrightly _bad_ written about him since what he thought was a disaster of a show. Some guy told him he sucked, didn’t he, and he wasn’t wrong, not exactly, but there’s just—radio silence. He debates Googling himself, searching on Twitter, maybe, to see if anyone has anything to say about it, but thinks otherwise. He’s in too good of spirits for that, and if anything…

He opens up his notes, where he stores funny observations he’s made, jokes half-formed, needing polishing. He never suggests any of these things to his team, not even to his agent, but—

Richie thinks he could rebrand right now, if he wanted to, and he kind of does.

He’d been hoping for some public backlash so he could work with that, make it useful, but he’d apparently done a lot better during that show than he’d thought. Or his PR team is just really good at their jobs. It could go either way, but it’s probably the latter, if we’re being serious here.

Still, he jots down an idea, goes back to his email, and replies to his agent. He doesn’t say _lol_ like he normally would, doesn’t even make any promises that he won’t throw up. He just says, _I think it’s time I write my own material_.

It takes forever for it to send, and he watches and waits, but the _Sending… _message never goes away. The Wifi in this place is shit, but it’ll go through eventually. Eddie can’t take much longer back there, can he? It’s just a face wound and he’s been meticulous about cleaning it.

They take those seriously, though, Richie thinks, so maybe he could be here all day. That would suck.

He drums his fingers on the arm of his chair, stretches his legs out, cracks the knuckles of his other hand. His phone rests, forgotten, on his stomach, and the way he’s all laid out makes his lower back hurt.

Richie looks around for something to do, not really interested in dicking around on the Internet, and debates between reading the most recent _People_ magazine, there's an interview with one of those breakout Netflix stars inside, or _Cosmo_, which advertises a really riveting _Are you good in bed? _quiz, which—that could be interesting to answer. The sex stories are also funny, and Richie is _bored_, so why the hell not, right? It's not like it's just for women.

He flips through it, searching for the right page, and looks up when the door opens and someone else comes through, looking pale, if anything. They walk right past him, to the desk, and talk in hushed tones to the receptionist.

Richie quickly loses interest when he can't hear a single thing they have to say, finds the quiz, and reads the first question before snorting and deciding the answer is A.

He makes it about halfway through before his phone vibrates against his shirt, and maybe his email went through, maybe his agent is calling to yell at him for suggesting such a stupid idea, so he answers it blindly, not bothering to check the Caller ID.

The way he says _hello _sounds like _yellow_ and there is a beat of silence on the other end.

Then:

“You’re not listening to me,” Stan says.

Richie drops the magazine. “What,” he blurts.

“I don’t know how long I can manage this, and I can’t even get the right words out, but, Rich, you need to take what I say seriously.”

“Uhhhhhhhhhh,” Richie draws out. He lifts his gaze, looks around. He’s alone again, the receptionist and the potential patient having moved elsewhere, which is good because he’s having a psychotic break. “You’re, um. You’re dead.”

Stan sighs noisily. “No shit, Trashmouth,” he replies. “It’s not ideal, since I am _still_ fucking fighting It at every turn and I died to avoid that, but I’ll do it for you.”

“Kind of you,” Richie says. He can feel the panic flipping his stomach over, climbing steadily up his throat. God, if he _vomits_ right now…

Well, at least he’s at an Urgent Care, and he has perfect view of both a trashcan and a potted plant, if he can’t make it that far.

“Richie,” Stan snaps, like he knows he’s only got half of his attention. He always knew; he knew too much, honestly. “It’s distracted right now, but I can _feel_ it looking for me, so listen, okay? I’m going to try to—you need to know that—_fuck_.” He sounds like he’s choking, throat closing up, and Richie, despite it all, despite his being dead and this definitely happening in his head—Stan is his best friend, he remembers him being his best friend, something different from Eddie—he asks if he’s okay. “No, I am _not okay_,” Stan tells him, voice rough and hard and exasperated. “I am _dead_, and I am trying to make sure no one _else_ dies, and I can’t even—”

He makes a gurgling sound and stops.

The silence rings in Richie’s ears. He can’t hear him breathe, but that makes sense because Stan is not doing that regularly. He pulls his phone away from his ear, looks at the darkened screen, like it’s going to tell him anything. To his utmost surprise, it lights up with _Atlanta, Georgia_.

He brings it back, listens. Asks, “Is It not dead?” That thought makes him even more nauseous than before, even though he’s pretty sick over Stan’s voice. “Did we not—”

It sounds like it hurts when Stan says, “Nnnnnnno,” like it’s coming out through gritted teeth, and then his jaw snaps shut. If Richie imagines hard enough, he can see teeth cracking, gums bleeding.

He waits for more—there has to be more, the answer cannot be _no_, what the fuck, Stan—but nothing comes. He dry heaves, just a little, feeling the burn of vomit right there in the back of his throat. He swallows, fights it, and presses a fist to his mouth.

His voice is hoarse like he’s been screaming when he asks, “What do you mean _no_? What does _no_ mean? Stan. Stan, please.”

“It means what no means, Rich,” he replies. “It’s not d-d-d—duh-duh—It’s _not _d—shit, fuck, is this what Bill felt like all the time? Like the words are there but I can’t get them out? God_damn_.”

“I don’t want to go back,” Richie tells him. “I won’t. I won’t tell Eddie, and we won’t go back, no matter what happens. I don’t care if you’re trying to get rid of It, I’m sorry, but I’m not—I won’t do it.”

“That’s the thing, Richie,” Stan implores, “you don’t have to _go back_. You n-n-n—_come on_—nuh-ever le-eh-left.” 

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean,” Richie all but explodes. “Of course I left. I’m in New York. That house isn’t even fucking standing anymore.”

“_But it is_,” Stan says. His voice sounds raw, shrinking in both volume and intensity. “It’s standing. You’re still there. You’re all still there.” He coughs, loud and insistent, over and over and over. It’s wet, almost, the sound of it. “Listen to me, please, Richie, and don’t be a dick about it—”

“Are you talking to anyone else or is it just me? Am I going crazy? I am, right, it was those Deadlights, they fucked with my head and now I’m going to be stuck with you for the rest of my—”

“Shut _up_,” Stan shouts at him. “Shut up, it _is_ the Deadlights. Stop running your mouth for one second. _The Deadlights_. The Deadlights, Richie, you’re still—” Stan seizes up, coughing again, and there is the clicking sound of claws on the other end, far away and then closer, like they are running. Scuttling. Stan swears. “You’re smart, okay, think about it. Don’t let him convince you it's—” He chokes again. “I have to go.”

The call ends.

Richie brings the screen close to his face, like so close he has to cross his eyes to see it. His wallpaper shows up, one of those pictures that’s already in the phone to begin with, because he has no creative bone in his body (or more like he has nothing in his life he'd make his phone background). It’s a little too colorful for him right now. He presses his thumb down to unlock it, and his hands are shaking so bad he almost drops it. He can still hear Stan’s voice, stuttering like Bill, angrily forcing out words that were getting trapped in his mouth.

It’s all fading fast, like the wisps of a dream, but he can hear him, clear as day, say _Deadlights_.

_Deadlights, Deadlights, Deadlights._

Those things fucked with his brain so bad he now has ghost-Stan to deal with, a shittier version of his best friend haunting him at every turn. Birds. Dreams. Phantom texts and calls—_Jesus fuck_—because _look_, his call log says the last person he talked to was Bev, just the other day, and he remembers that. Has _proof _of that. There is no Atlanta, Georgia here.

But he can still hear him, like a broken record, warning him about… warning him…

Warning him about _what_?

He can’t remember in the same way he can’t remember his nightmare from last night, in the same way he can’t remember much of his childhood still. Just bits and pieces, a general feeling of unease and fear.

And Stan. Stan’s voice. Stan at thirteen. Man, he misses Stan.

Richie shakes himself out of it, sends a quick message to Bill, Ben, Bev, and Mike, checking in on them. Where is Mike at now? How is Bev handling Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska? Eddie’s getting his face examined, he tells them. _When his stitches come out, he's gonna look hotter than Ben HA. _

(Ben says _true. _

Bev sends the ugliest emoticon, made of symbols only: _( ︶︿︶)_╭∩╮_

Bill goes _bev wtf is that i hate it._

Mike pops up with no response, just a thumbs down to Bev's text, and a thumbs up to Ben's. 

_Mike loves Eddie more than me_, Ben says. 

Mike likes that one and goes back up to emphasize Richie's initial text with two exclamation points.)

Richie snorts, the chat going a mile a minute with updates and in-fighting on who is hottest (Mike is strictly Team Eddie while Bev changes her tune and suggests that _she _is, not the rest of them), and slips his phone in his pocket. With a crack of his knuckles, Richie goes back to his _Cosmo_ quiz, eyes growing heavy. He squints at it anyway, determined to see just how shitty in bed the creators of this thing think he is. He snuck a look at the results and he thinks he knows which one he'll get, then wonders when they'll make quizzes that differentiate sex with different kinds of partners, because, like, he really leans more towards the guys than the girls, and this quiz is not going to know that about him.

The answer to the fifth question is B.

It takes him three tries to read the next one, the words running together. He blinks a few times to fix that, pushes his glasses into his hair, rubs his eyes. He’s so fucking tired, which makes sense, given everything. There was a lot of excitement last night, both good and bad, and he hasn’t really gotten a good night’s sleep in some time, either, if he’s honest. Even before the trek back to Maine. And he's bored, and he's anxious, and he just wants to _leave_. Not a very good combination for him, or anyone else, who is trying to sleep. 

He wonders if Eddie has any of those Tylenol PM things in his toiletry bag. He could really use one tonight.

The answer to question six is A.

* * *

Eddie shakes him awake, which startles him so badly he kicks his leg out and slams it against the floor. The receptionist shoots him a look to which he responds to with a sheepish grin.

“Sorry,” Eddie says. “I didn’t think it would take as long as it did.”

Richie’s voice is thick with sleep. “S’fine,” he replies. “Took a quiz. Texted our friends. Apparently took a nap.”

“Yeah, I saw.” Eddie fixes his glasses, crooked on his face, and cups his cheek. “Thanks for telling them I’m gonna look”—he screws his face up—“sexy as hell with this scar.”

“But of course,” Richie purrs. He examines Eddie, thinks he’ll never get sick of looking at him, and zeros in on the lack of medical tape. The lack of stitches. “Look at that, so h_aaaaaaa_ndsome! Wow, my boyfriend is a _ten_, who knew?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Eddie bats his hand away when Richie tries to touch it. “And you’re a strong six.”

Richie wrinkles his nose. “Are you implying that I am both ugly and not funny?”

“Hey, you’re the one who said it, not me.”

“God,” Richie dramatizes, hand pressed to his chest. “They get hot and they get _mean_. What is it with you and Ben? You should form a club. The… the… _Hot and Mean to Richie_ club.” 

“Not your best, Trashmouth," Eddie says, "but we already have one. We meet every Wednesday.” Eddie offers him his palm. “Come on, get up, let’s go. I’m convinced the staff here thinks we had a domestic dispute and you’re the one that stabbed me in the face.”

Richie takes it, linking their fingers. “Yeah, the receptionist definitely hates me.”

“She hates you because you were talking in your sleep,” Eddie tells him. “I overheard her complaining in the back. Were you dreaming about Stan again?”

He shrugs, pushing the door open. “Don’t remember,” he admits, “but that sounds about right. I think I’m just like… I really have time to think about how he’s dead now, you know, and it sucks, like, it sucks a _lot_.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. He shields his eyes with his free hand, looking for his car. He finds it, pulls them in its direction. “It’s not fair. We all should have been able to escape It.”

Richie nods, chest tight, and tries his luck at opening the passenger side door. He doesn’t want to climb in through Eddie’s side again—his back _aches_—and he will, in fact, sit in the back like Eddie’s a chauffeur. He’s not above it.

The car must feel bad for him this time around, unsticking to let him in, and Richie slams it shut as hard as he can, just to make sure it doesn’t, like, fly off the hinges and get him killed on their way back.

“I wanted to go straight to a garage,” Eddie tells him, securing his seatbelt, “but you look like you could use another nap.”

Richie waves his hand, leans forward to fiddle with the radio. “It’s fine,” he says. “We can go. It’s another thing off our to do list before we can finally get out of this city.”

“Nah,” Eddie vetoes. “I should look up places first. See if they can even check the car out today. I’m not in the mood to waste time looking for one.”

“Mkay,” Richie says. He _is _bone tired, but the longer they put this off, the longer it takes to find out how they plan to get to California. He just wants to be there already. He wants to fast forward to a month from now, Eddie all settled at his place, going about their daily, domestic lives. For fuck’s sake, he wants to cook Eddie _breakfast_, like omelets and cubes of fried potato.

He watches the city speed by them, temple resting against the window, while Eddie blathers on about how he still needs to be diligent with his skincare, and the scar, and he should make sure to put ointment on it every night just to be safe.

Richie asks, “Did the doctor tell you that?”

Eddie taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “Uh, no,” he says.

“Then don’t,” Richie suggests, biting around another yawn. What the fuck. “You’ll probably just irritate it further if you keep poking at it and I do not want to say _I told you so _when you reopen it with your incessant scrubbing.”

“So many words,” Eddie replies. “So many words that you _yawned through_. What?”

“I _said_,” Richie starts, louder, “that you should not do that because you will irritate it further and you will reopen it.” He remembers Eddie used to pick at all his scars, making his knees and his knuckles bleed all over again. His mom would bandage him up real tight to get him to stop, but that only blocked his circulation, and Eddie would rip them off at the Barrens, or in the clubhouse, or at Bill’s, and he’d pull his scars off like a crazy person.

Richie reminds him of that and says, “You also tried to take your own cast off because you decided your arm was healed.”

“It was,” Eddie defends.

“It was _two weeks_ after you got it put on,” Richie retorts. “That thing broke in three different places.”

“Didn’t realize you paid attention,” Eddie says, trying to squeeze past a driver that’s going to slow for him. He huffs in annoyance when he can’t. Richie watches him decide not to tailgate in idle amusement. What a tiny angry person he is. _Adorable_.

“Spaghetti, Eds, Eddie _baby_,” Richie says, “I cried when you broke your arm. It was like I broke mine. I don’t know. It was weird.” He scrubs a hand down his face. “I paid attention to everything you did, which you already know. We've established that I was obsessed with you."

“Still are, apparently,” Eddie, the little shit, replies, "and for good reason. Have you seen me?”

Richie blinks and turns his head. Eddie’s cheeks are flushed high in the apples, as pink as a setting sun, making an excellent counterargument to his Richie-esque rebuttal. He curls his fingers in on themselves, makes a fist he tucks beneath his shirt because he can’t touch, not yet, and says the complete opposite of how he is feeling.

“Jesus, please stop the car, I’m going to walk. Your ego and I can’t fit in this vehicle.”

Eddie snickers and makes a scene of child-locking the doors.

* * *

Richie takes one look at the bed, feels a tug deep in his gut, and flops down on it, splaying out right in the middle. The lenses of his glasses press uncomfortably into his eyes, but he makes no effort to move them, content to lay here until exhaustion takes him over.

“Jeez, Rich, why didn’t you tell me how tired you were?”

“Wasn’t tired until we got to Urgent Care,” he says into the mattress.

Eddie apparently understands him, and nudges at his knee. “C’mon,” he encourages. “Roll over.”

“Woof,” Richie jokes, doing as instructed. He keeps his eyes closed, throwing an arm over his face.

“Good dog.” Eddie pats his leg and starts to pull his shoes off, untying them and easing them off his feet.

Richie wiggles his toes, has the fleeting thought to stick his socks in Eddie’s face. Eddie catches him before he does—man, his reflexes are slow when he’s tired—and snaps, “No, you don’t.”

“But Spaghetti,” Richie whines, all but kicking him in the face when he pinches the arch of his foot. He spasms a bit, and Eddie snorts, applying pressure to the spot with his knuckle. “I wanna touch you.”

“Not with your gross-ass feet you won’t,” Eddie says, sliding his hand up to grip his ankle bone. He is warm and calloused against his skin, and it sends a thrill up his spine.

Richie pushes himself up on his elbows to peer down at Eddie, seated at the end of the bed. Their gazes meet, and Richie’s mouth dries instantly, overwhelmed and kind of lost—the same question fills his mind, the one he tries to ignore, the one that’s just fucking _sad_, and he wonders how he managed this long without this, without Eddie. It hasn’t been that long but it feels like forever, and the days that will come after this one are lengthy and stretched out, never-ending, like the promise of a summer day when you’re twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

“What if I don’t use my feet?” he proposes, swallowing. His throat aches, and it’s like he’s eleven years old, and he’s looking at Eddie for the first time, like _really_ looking, and the sun is blinding behind him, and Eddie is _shining_, and he’s saying—what did he say—he’s saying, _Wanna swap sandwich halves_? And in Eddie-speak, that means something else entirely. It always has.

“Thought you were tired,” Eddie murmurs. “You’ve been napping on and off all day.”

“Never too tired to kiss my wittle Eddie,” Richie replies, putting all his strength into his core to make grabby hands at him.

“I’m not little,” Eddie mutters to which Richie says, “Oh, I _know_." 

Eddie ignores that, talking over him. “You should really sleep. You look like shit.”

Richie sighs, overdramatic, and flops back down. “So mean to me.” He looks at the ceiling, at the paint that dried kind of oddly what looks like mid-drip. “At least you could kiss me goodnight, you know, that’s what boyfriends do.”

Eddie lets go of his leg, though his touch still burns through to his bone, to his cells, to his _atoms_, and he crawls up the bed on his left side. The dip of the mattress has Richie’s body shifting into Eddie’s, where he buries his face in his ribs, Eddie’s arm thrown over his shoulders. It is warm, and it is comfortable, and it smells nice, _Eddie smells nice_, clean and woodsy. It would be very easy to fall asleep, to succumb to the exhaustion that’s pulling at him, but Richie doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to miss this, the easy way they are around each other, the cuddling, the familiarity, the—the _domesticity_.

But mainly he doesn’t want to waste more time not having this. The faster they get through Eddie’s list of things to do, the faster this is a reality. They can lounge around his place in California, and they can repaint the living room, and they can drink piña coladas in the pool. They can walk down the street, holding hands, and they can do laundry, and they can eat dinner in the dining room. They can argue over what to watch on television, and they can spend Saturday mornings in bed until noon, and they can get a dog. All the things they didn’t get to do because they’d forgotten each other, they can do those. They can get reacquainted, and they can learn all the new things they don't know about each other, and they can _be together_.

They just can’t do it _here_, in this hotel room, in fucking _New York_, where Eddie never wanted to be.

“Let’s go to the auto shop,” he mumbles into Eddie’s shirt. “Get rid of your car. Fix your car. I don’t know.”

Eddie’s hand slips through his hair, fingers gently tugging the tangles out of his curls. “I haven’t looked up anything yet,” he says. “Can’t go into it blindly.”

“I wanna leave,” he tells him.

“Me too,” Eddie admits. “We’re almost there. Don’t worry.”

_But I am worried_, he doesn’t tell him. _I don’t know why, but I am._

Richie exhales loudly. Eddie rubs his thumb against the space above his ear, then tilts Richie’s head so he can press his mouth against his forehead. “Go to sleep,” he tells him again.

“Wake me up when you go,” Richie says.

“Sure,” Eddie replies.

* * *

Richie wakes up on three separate occasions.

The first is a bit of a blur, Richie still half-asleep, but he’s blinking blearily up at Eddie, who is halfway to untangling himself from his koala-like hold.

Eddie stops and stares at him, elbow bent awkwardly, knee pressing into the mattress between Richie’s legs. Richie lifts himself up just enough for Eddie to get his arm back, and asks, “Where you goin’?”

“There’s a garage not too far from here that’s not that busy,” Eddie tells him. “They’re gonna check out the door for me.” He sits up, twists his back to crack it. “Wanna come?”

Richie burrows back down into the pillow, says, “No,” and then pops back up to pull Eddie back down to him by the collar, pressing a wet, messy kiss to his chin, the only part of his face he can reach.

Eddie’s dimple comes out in full force when he smiles.

The next is when his phone rings, loud and alarming by his ear (this is why he _never_ leaves his sound on, what the fuck). He scrambles to get it, dislodging himself from his blanket cocoon, and peeks at the Caller ID before he answers. _Eddie_, it says, with a dumb little emoji next to it, and it’s not even a cute one. It’s literally a plate of spaghetti. Eddie hates it, so Richie loves it.

“Hi, baby,” he greets, voice thick with sleep.

Eddie sighs, a little fond and a little exasperated. “Hey.” He is soft. “Did I wake you?”

“Little bit,” Richie answers, “but I will always wake up for you.” He rolls over, wrapping himself up again, and stares up at the ceiling. 

“Sorry,” Eddie murmurs. “I didn’t mean to. Do you want to hang up?”

“No,” Richie says, and it’s the truth. He could listen to Eddie forever, doesn’t matter what state of mind he’s in or what Eddie’s even talking about. “What’s going on?”

“I’m just bored,” Eddie tells him. “Wanted to hear your voice. Wish you came with me.”

“I can come with you later,” Richie says immediately, pitching it with the kind of innuendo a fifteen-year-old would. Eddie merely snorts and doesn’t fight him on it. “What’s going on over there?”

“You’re going to hate me,” he merely says.

“Impossible,” Richie responds.

Eddie is sheepish when he suggests, “I think we should drive to California.” Richie laughs so hard he chokes and Eddie’s voice rises to be heard over him. “Shut up, it’s not funny, oh my _god_.”

“It kind of is,” Richie splutters. “What happened to _flying is the safest way to travel_ and _it’ll take six hours_—”

“I will _hang up_—”

“I’ll call you back—”

“Okay, look,” Eddie relents, all but deflating, “the mechanic says it’s not that bad, and I can fix it here if I’m willing to wait up to a week and a half, which if this were any other day of my life, I’d do it, but I’m just—I’m really not up for that. I want to get out of here as soon as we can.”

Richie blurts, “We can wait,” before he can think better of it. “If you want your car fixed—”

“I want _you_,” Eddie interrupts, and it’s the way he says it, all soft and gentle but assertive, that has Richie’s throat closing up, teeth coming back together, blocking the rest of his sentence. “And I can’t have you here the way I want you. I don’t want to wait for that. I can deal with it. They’re fixing the lock so it doesn’t stick anymore and then I’ll—we can switch off, driving there. I’ve never taken a road trip before. It should be fun.”

The way he says _fun_ is the same way people say things like _hernias_ and _skin cancer _and, like, _cannibalism_.

“Sound a little more excited, Eds,” Richie suggests.

“I mean, well, logically, it is probably better for my knees, and your stupid long legs, and we can stop whenever we want, and we can, like, listen to whatever music we want as loudly as we want, and there’s no fear of turbulence, which still kind of freaks me out, not gonna lie—”

“And we can fuck in the backseat,” provides Richie.

“Um, _no_,” Eddie squeaks, and it is easy to see the way the flush is probably spreading across his cheeks even though he’s not there with him. “We can_not_ do that. We can use the money we’ll save by not booking an overpriced flight for hotel rooms we can fuck in instead.”

Richie stretches his legs out in front of him, clicks his tongue. “But we are fucking,” he says slowly, just for confirmation.

“Well, yeah,” Eddie replies, using the same tone as when he’d say _duh_ when he was a kid, “but I’m not fixing this lock so we can both throw our backs out in this car.”

“But we can throw our backs out in a hotel room?”

“Sure,” says Eddie.

“This hotel room I’m currently in?”

“Maybe.”

“When do you get back?”

“It’s going to take, like, two hours for them to fix it,” Eddie explains, “so, like, three hours from now, probably? But you’ve been so tired today, who knows if you’ll even be up for—”

“Oh, I’ll be up,” Richie promises. “Obviously I’ll be up.”

Eddie snickers and says, “Sure, we’ll see about that,” when Richie’s traitorous body decides that _now_ is the best time to surprise him with a fucking yawn. 

The last time he wakes, it is of his own accord, slow and languid, and he doesn’t even remember falling back asleep. His phone is pressed against him, acting like a makeshift pillow, folding his ear in half. He has a partial memory of listening to Eddie tell him about the problem with the car, using this mechanical jargon that went right over his head but sounded hot coming out of Eddie's mouth. He couldn't have possibly fell asleep to _that_, could he? 

He must've, because when he notices the room for the first time, it's darker than it was the last time, the sun having set behind the drawn curtains. Eddie must've shut those before he left; Richie knows the sun was still high in the sky when he was leaving. The light in the bathroom is on, washing half the space with an orange glow that Richie is grateful for. He sniffs, feeling well-rested for a change, and rubs at his eyes, picking the crust from the inner corners. He hasn’t dreamt, or he hasn’t remembered it, and it’s a nice change of pace, given all the shit the Deadlights have done to his brain.

Because the shit with Stan, it has to be the Deadlights. Bev spent her whole life a victim to them, and that happened in ’89 and still managed to follow her around despite her memories being fucked. It must be different when you’re allowed to remember it all, no inexplicable magic in place to make everything weird and fuzzy. To make it a nightmare that can be explained away.

If he’s like this now, how’s she handling it? He should check in again. On all of them, but specifically on Bev, who has seen all of their deaths. Who _knew_ what happened to Stan before anyone else, who couldn’t tell him what he looked like when they grew up because she never saw him. Because he wasn’t _there_.

Richie’s thoughts race through his head at a speed that makes him dizzy, and he struggles to sit up and grab his phone at the same time, not even sure what time it is. Has he slept the entire day away? When will Eddie be back? How long did he nap for and was that a smart decision?

He cranes his neck around, looks for both a clock and his glasses, and accepts the latter when they're handed over to him.

“Thanks,” he says.

“You’re welcome,” Stan’s voice replies, and Richie _screams_.

Stan slaps his palm, the same one that gave him his glasses, over his mouth. It is warm, and it is solid, and Richie can feel the grooves of bone and calluses. "Be quiet," he hisses, "or It'll hear you." 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter six, more like "an ode to stanley uris (stephen king is a coward)" 
> 
> strong headcanon that stan and richie are bffaeaeaeae. also i can't remember if eddie wears white at all, but let's pretend he doesn't for my sanity's sake. thanks!!!

On reflex, Richie grabs at Stan to push him away, but recoils immediately when he feels the split skin of his wrists, right where he must’ve slit them. They should be nothing there to touch—Stan is _ dead_—but Richie’s fingers can make out the slime of muscle.

He gags. Stan presses his palm down harder.

“What the fuck, Stanley,” Richie moans, hitting at him. “Can’t I sleep without one goddamn nightmare? _ Go away._”

“This isn’t a nightmare,” Stan tells him, gaze hard when Richie dares to look at him straight on again.

He looks different. Taller, having grown into his shoulders, and his nose. His curls have deflated, darker now, like the color of his hair was a direct result of summer and an overabundance of sunlight. But he is still there, in the set of his brow and the tension around his mouth. He is Stanley, Richie’s best friend.

Richie blinks, transfixed, and then blurts, “Holy shit, you’re old.”

Stan rolls his eyes. “Right, and so are you, but at least I knew how to take care of myself and don’t walk around like some kind of wet dog.”

_I should be offended_, Richie allows himself to think, but he isn’t, and he feels his lips quirk up. Stan frowns, watching him, and Richie is smiling at him like a crazy idiot.

“I don’t remember you being this much of an asshole,” he bites back, though the heat is lacking. There’s nowhere for it to be: Richie’s smile is too soft for hard edges.

“Then you don’t remember me at all,” Stan retorts, and his mouth twists too, “which is fucking _ rude_, Trashmouth, given what I’m doing for you.”

“Duly noted.” Richie nods seriously, focusing on what he knows about Stanley Uris: kind of bitchy, perfectly pressed clothes, hair he hated getting mussed up, loyal to a fault. A bar mitzvah he lost it in during the worst summer of their lives. Comic book collections with no corners bent and bird-watching books. Richie laying on his back, listening to Stan point out robins and warblers and sparrows. He loved summer and hated rain and wanted to get out of Derry so bad Richie could taste it in his own mouth. (Wanted to get out of Derry but didn’t want to leave his friends.)

And here he is, similar but different, alive but dead, and Richie’s smile falls.

“You’re actually here,” he says softly. He catches sight of Stan’s hands again, flips them over so the palms press into the bedding, so his wrists are hidden from view. He wants to pretend, just for a moment.

Stan snags his fingers, attempts to hold them, but Richie slips away. The heat of his body feels real and it startles him, sends his heart pounding in his ears, his throat, his feet. Stan says, “No, _ you’re _ here.”

His vocal cords block what he really wants to say, growing impenetrable vines that not even the sharpest blade could cut, locking him and everything else away. He wants to say _ So it’s real then, what you’re telling me_, but he is not allowed to be that aware, it seems, so what comes out is, “_You’re _ the one haunting _ me_.”

“Can’t haunt someone occupying the same space as me,” Stan replies, “and I don’t know exactly _ how _to haunt, that’s not one of the ghost powers I was granted.” At Richie’s disbelieving look, he adds, “Believe me, I tried. The closest I could get was having Bev think she was seeing things, even when you all went back.”

“You were there?”

“Yeah, of course I showed up, thanks for the stunning vote of confidence, by the way.” Stan doesn’t look too peeved, though, just pensive. Sad, almost, but that was what his face always looked like. “I wasn’t going to just abandon you.”

“Then why did you?” Richie asks, digging his knee into Stan’s. God, this is such a _ weird _ thing. So _ unreal_. 

Stan looks down at his hands, uses his index finger to prod at the flabs of skin hanging on his right wrist. “I’d slow you down,” he admits. “I wasn’t brave like Bev, or the rest of you. I saw too many things when the portrait ate my face and they never left me. I couldn’t come back and let it all come true.” He glances at Richie from beneath his lashes, long and dark, and his nose wrinkles in—is that—is _ Stan _ wallowing? “I never forgot, Rich. It wouldn’t let me.”

“What?”

“I knew who all of you were. I watched your specials and went to your shows if they were nearby. I read all of Bill’s books and could pick all of us out of the lineup of characters even if he couldn’t. Bev’s clothing line makes—_made_—up half of my closet.” He rubs his cheek, almost bashful.

The admission makes Richie’s heart clench painfully in his chest. He briefly wonders if this is what It felt like, when they pulled Its out and crushed it. He swallows roughly, wipes his palms (sweaty) on his pants.

“You never called,” he accuses, though it’s not an accusation at all.

Stan shakes his head. “I didn’t,” he says. “I couldn’t. I saw what happened if I reached out. I couldn’t interfere with the timeline.”

“The _ timeline_,” Richie parrots. “There is—you are—” He fumbles for words he can’t find, for a feeling he can’t express, and thinks so loudly he’s certain everyone can hear it: _ I am certifiably insane. _

His best friend stares at him, unblinking, because while he feels and looks and talks like he’s real, he isn’t. He’s dead, and dead men don’t need to breathe or sleep or blink. He waits for Richie to cycle through his emotions, looking right through him like always, knowing too much despite Richie’s best efforts to keep his shit to himself.

It must take too long—Richie is really going on a ride here, the fuck are _ timelines_—and Stan gets up. Inspects the place like they used to after the first encounter with It, checking shadowy corners and flipping lights on before entering a room. Stan does that now, illuminates the main room, and the color of the bulbs does not match that of the ones in the bathroom. Orange spills into white, and Richie squints, overwhelmed by the sudden brightness.

He wills himself not to wonder how Stan can touch things like that and watches as he continues to investigate, striding around, opening doors. He looks in the closet, deems it safe, leaves it cracked. He pulls the shower curtain out of the way and it makes a shriek that sets Richie on edge, and he tries to pull the drain out of the bathtub. He returns to Richie, but doesn’t say a word. Opens the dresser drawers, the curtains. Squints behind Richie, behind himself. Sighs. Knocks on the wall—_one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven. _

Stan turns around and asks, “Do you believe a single thing I’ve said to you so far?”

Like in the dream of Neibolt, Richie wants to say _ No, Stan, I fucking don’t, this is insane_, but he says, “Yes.”

He says, “Yes,” because Stan has never lied to him. Stan has never done anything to not deserve his trust. Stan has always been the best friend he could be, even when he was scared, even when he thought he wasn’t worth the trouble.

And, honestly, this isn’t the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to him. There was once a killer fucking clown chasing after him, twenty-seven years and two days ago. There was an inexplicable evil that tried to force him out of the closet, but also tried to make him hate himself more for finding boys attractive the way girls were. There was shapeshifting into Georgie, and a Paul Bunyon statue trying to eat him, and his body in a coffin, mouth sewed shut and abandoned. There is Eddie’s head, mouth spewing dark blood, and even more closets, this time in the shape of doors, digging at Richie’s internalization and making him _ choose _ when he didn’t know how.

_ Not Scary. _

_ Scary. _

_ Very Scary. _

Stan, in spite of his limp wrists, weird eyes, and incomplete warnings, falls into the _ Not Scary _ category.

Richie opens that door and prays to a god he doesn’t believe in. Prays to them all, even the ones who’ve been forgotten. He knows what that feels like.

Stan’s face is pale, and he has no blood in his body, but his cheeks flush gray anyway, pleased with Richie’s answer. “You were fighting me before. Why do you believe now?”

“I guess,” Richie starts, reaching up to scratch at his temple. He is itchy there. “I guess I just didn't want to believe you, but there are things that don’t make sense." _The lights. The voices. You. How I feel so tired but I never get enough sleep._ "Of course I'm... of course it's not real. It all seems too easy.”

“It will always be this easy,” Stan tells him. “If it works out in the end, you will always get what you want.”

“That can’t be true,” Richie mumbles. “I can’t just—I don’t normally, is all.” He can’t look Stan in the eye when he says, “I can’t possibly get what I want if it means I don’t get you with it.”

There are hands cupping his cheeks, and Stan is kneeling over him, making him maintain eye contact. Richie hates it, wriggles out of his hold—or tries to—and averts his gaze. “Richie,” Stan says, “I’ve seen it. You get it. You just have to believe in yourself, believe you _ deserve _it.”

“You deserve to live, Stan,” Richie breathes out, sniffing. He blinks, over and over, trying to fight against the onslaught of tears building up behind his eyes. “You deserve to be _ happy_, and to be with us, and _not be dead_.”

“The one and only fucking time you don’t want to make something about yourself is _ now_?” Stan shoots back. “Richie, I _ was _ happy. When I was with you guys, I felt like I could do anything. I—killing myself may not have been the best idea, but I did it for you all. I did it to _ save you_, now please let me do it. Let me fix it.”

Richie sniffles and chokes on a self-deprecating laugh, prying himself out of Stan’s hold. Stan never did shit like this, was never that touchy, but Stan did go out on a limb for each one of them. He may have bitched through it all, but he went to Neibolt, and he stood up for Richie, and he called adults out on their crap. He got his nose broken by Bowers when he went after Ben, and he put Eddie’s name on his English papers when Eddie was quarantined by his mother (for an illness she made up). He gave Bill a place to stay when his absentee parents got too much, and he threw rocks when Bev was called a slut, and he reminded Mike he was better than the slurs he was called.

God, Stan was the best. Stan _ is _ the best. He’d been saving them his whole life—and they couldn’t be bothered to save him back.

“You’re not stuttering,” Richie says, which is something he’d definitely say to Bill, not Stan. He remembers how hard it was for Stan to talk, though, like he was trying to weasel his way out of some sort of oath he’d made to stay silent. 

“I’m not,” Stan agrees. “It’s preoccupied with Georgie right now, who is trying to rescue Bill.”

_ Georgie_, trying to rescue Bill, who spent almost a whole year trying to rescue him. Trying to find him. Never giving up, always believing there was _ something_. A sewer system, greywater, a girl’s shoe. A paper boat, a yellow raincoat, a manipulation right before his eyes, making Bill choose. _ You’re not Georgie_. A group hug as he cried, a baseball bat, a promise that meant more than destroying evil. A promise that bonded them forever, to be there when they were needed, when things got hard, when they needed saving. Blood brothers. Blood sister. Blood siblings. Family: the one they made because many of them didn’t like the one they got. _ I promise_.

Stan initiating it, Stan making them swear it, not Bill. Stan knowing more than he led on. Stan, the protector. Stan, the constant. Stan, never wavering.

(_Wake up and _ look_. _

_ You can’t stay here. _

_ You’re not listening to me._)

Richie thinks it for the first time, thinks _ I’m still in the Deadlights_, and doesn’t throw up. The skin of his cheeks feels brittle and dry, absorbing the tears he doesn’t know when he started crying. He thinks it again. _ I’m still in the Deadlights_. He thinks, _ Fuck this fucking clown. _

He says, voice wobbling, “Do not tell me I’ve spent this whole time _ flirting _ with It.” He wanted it to come out as a joke—Bill said he was good at those, at easing the tension—but it’s sad and defeated. “Don’t tell me _ It _ had Its mouth on my—” He can’t finish the thought, fucking horrified, and bites down on his tongue so hard he draws blood.

“No,” Stan says. “That was Eddie.”

“How can it be Eddie if I’m _ stuck in the goddamn Deadlights_?”

“The Deadlights fuck with time,” Stan explains, and he’s darting his hand out to grab Richie’s. To hold it while he ruins his entire life. “They showed Bev our futures, possible and otherwise, and they showed me every timeline we’ve ever lived through.”

“It was like this for you, too? Living a lie?”

“No, this is—this is extreme,” Stan admits. “I was just a bystander, watching them all go on. Time works differently here, too, so it felt like forever when it was only a minute at most.”

“And what’s this? Where am I?”

“In one of the worlds where Eddie lives,” Stan says slowly.

Richie nods, _ makes perfect sense, thanks_, and takes hold of the end of the sentence. Fixates on it. _ Where Eddie lives where Eddie lives where Eddie lives_—

“_One _where Eddie,” Richie croaks. “There are ones where he—” 

He can’t even _ say it_.

“The fight in the cistern has an infinite number of outcomes,” Stan says wisely, logically, a professor standing in front of a 100-Level class. “Of those, there are only four in which Eddie lives. This is one of them.”

“Four,” Richie repeats. His heart hammers a staccato in his chest, threatens to snap his ribs and burst through. A little soldier with its fists up, ready to fight Stan for saying such a thing. “_Four_, as in one, two, three, four.” He holds up the corresponding amount of fingers, drops each one slowly, forms a fist. “Four.”

Stan covers the fist with his hand. Richie balks, feeling his skin, but leaves it there. The comfort is much nicer, far stronger than the disgust. “It knows what you want and It is torturing you by giving it to you and then taking it away. The confusion it creates for you will keep you from saving Eddie.”

“What,” Richie blurts. His mind is running circles around his ability to comprehend, and if what Stan is saying is true—_also, hello, why wouldn’t it be?_—Eddie only has four chances to live and he doesn’t _ get to _ because Richie is a fucking idiot. Is too fucking slow. Is more focused on a life he did not even live on his own. A life he _ gets to live_, if he can fix it.

“Here’s what we know: you call Pennywise a sloppy bitch, which is fucking hysterical”—Richie’s mouth twists despite himself—“and pull him away from Mike, who would’ve died there if you hadn’t. He gets pissed you throw a rock at him, which is also kind of funny, and captures you in the Deadlights. _ That’s _where we are right now. That’s the scene. You’re in the Deadlights.”

“Yeah, we’ve established that,” Richie mutters. “Everything else after? That didn’t happen?”

“It didn’t happen _ yet_,” Stan says, “and it might not ever. This world we’re in, it’s real, but it’s two parts time manipulation and one part your imagination. Whatever you were thinking about before the Deadlights caught you is what world you landed in.”

Richie flushes, remembers that despite how terrified he’d been, he’d been wondering why he hadn’t just kissed Eddie when he told him he was brave. Or told him something else, like _ I still love you_. 

Stan, the greatest, ignores the implications, and attempts to explain what’s going on, probably knowing that Richie will hardly retain any of it, as overwhelmed as he is. “When you go back, this may not be the world you go back to, but it exists. It’s like… like when you experience déjà vu, I guess. That’s the best I can come up with.”

“How does that make any sense, Stan?” Richie asks, irritated all over again. He should just shut his mouth and listen, but going back to something that may not be this? That’s just an awful reminder that he’s got a sliver of a chance of even getting this experience. That his cards have always been stacked against him. There are only _four _worlds where he has a shot of something close to happiness (contentment, maybe?), but without Stan's divine intervention, he'd be _miserable_. “How can I live a world that is like _ déjà vu _ but not live it at the same time? Is it real or is it not? Is it—it’s just—it’s _ bullshit_. Déjà vu implies I’ve lived this before and I haven’t. I’ve never had this. I don’t have anything to compare to this.”

“I said it was the _ best _ I could come up with!” Stan snaps. “Now is _ not _ the time to spiral. I am risking a lot by being here, you know that? I could’ve gone over, but the turtle asked what I wanted to do, and I said I wanted to _ help_—”

“_The turtle_,” Richie repeats. “The _ turtle_?”

Stan says, “The turtle couldn’t help you, but I could.”

“What _ fucking _turtle,” Richie starts to shout, but then Stan’s shutting him up again, pressing his hand so hard against his mouth his teeth all but move back into his throat.

“Shut _ up_,” Stan says again, deadly quiet. “Just because It’s busy doesn’t mean Georgie can keep him that way for long. It still has _ ears_.”

“Does it?” Richie asks, question muffled. “Does it have ears? I’ve never looked.”

“God,” Stan complains, “did it _ have _ to be you? If it were Mike, he’d accept this no problem.”

Richie bites on his finger, tastes dirt, and smacks his lips, spitting. “Want me to go get him for you?”

“Richie, _ please_,” Stan snaps, “not everything is a goddamn joke. Admit that you’re scared and listen to me. If you don’t, Eddie will die. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen _ every version of it _and I'd really like for it _not to happen_." 

He shuts up, all of Eddie’s possible deaths flooding his mind, getting more and more outlandish as he goes on. Bowers’ knife through his throat. That spider of Stan’s head launching itself at him instead of Richie. Drowning in the sewer water. Over and over, he sees Eddie’s dead eyes, feels the life bleed out of him. At one point, he sees himself, Richie, possessed, choking the life out of him.

Stan’s voice tells him to breathe, and he does, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Funny that a dead guy is talking him through a panic attack. That’s a good joke. Maybe he’ll start his stand up with that. _ So there I was, hyperventilating, and my dead best friend is coaching me through it. _

It could use work, but so could all his shit, really. 

The images of Eddie disappear slowly, replaced with Stan’s wide eyes, and Richie curls his fingers around Stan’s. Leans forward, presses his forehead to his shoulder.

He feels Stan’s hand through his hair, makes up a heartbeat that’s not there, and the tension eases from his spine. He all but folds in on himself, on Stan, and allows himself to be _ fearful_. As if he ever stopped, _ ha_.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay. Keep going.”

“Do you want to know what happens to Eddie?”

“No,” says Richie, “but I’ll have to, if I want to stop it.”

“Right,” Stan agrees. “Do you trust me?”

Immediately: “Of course I do.”

“Good,” Stan says. He stops massaging Richie’s scalp. “Look at me.”

Richie does, squinting behind his lenses, as Stan’s eyes glaze over, glowing bright and intense like the Deadlights. Is it possible to see into them _ again _while he’s already in them? Does that cancel it out?

“Stop thinking,” Stan orders, taking his hands. “Watch.”

“Watch wha—” Richie starts, then stops, sucked into the images moving in Stan’s golden pupils.

It feels like this should have wacky music dubbed over it, like a silent film, but the subject matter is too horrifying for even the funniest of jokes. Richie can’t feel his tongue in his mouth, he’s so upset, as his other self—or is that him, currently? He doesn’t know—falls to the floor. His legs lay in odd, uncomfortable angles and his back aches in sympathy, already having battled those pains.

He can’t tell what’s going on with him past that: What he remembers of coming to, it was slow going but there seemed to be an infinite amount of time to worry about everything and everyone. Richie immediately knew where he was. And Eddie was there, hovering over him, brilliant smile causing blood to drip down past his bandage, splitting his face.

Richie’d taken those cheeks and fucked it all to hell to kiss him, not worried about the consequences. Eddie’d kissed him back, which was a surprise and a fucking miracle _(but was it really, Richie?_), and they all lived happily ever after. The end.

Except here, he blurts out Eddie’s name when he sees the claw burst through his chest. Blood splatters onto Richie’s glasses, which have cracked. It lifts Eddie like a rag doll, shakes him around, and throws him clear across the cavern.

Richie—

Richie just lays there, baffled and confused, and in the distance, the clown’s grin widens.

It takes him no time to get up once he’s registered what happened. Eddie is bleeding out, there’s no surviving this, and he's telling them _ I made It small in the pharmacy_, and they all suddenly seem to know what that means.

Both Richies only have eyes for Eddie, even as the Losers make a plan. He’s having trouble breathing. He’s got his hand against his chest, like he’s not certain there’s a hole there, and his fingers are bloodied and wrecked. He’s _ dying_, and Richie won’t leave him, he won’t, until they’ve made the thing small enough to destroy, and then he’s leaving his jacket with him, ripping that godforsaken claw from his leg, and spitting _ clown _ at it.

It happens the same way: It shrinks, they take Its heart, they crush it.

Richie goes back to Eddie. Eddie is dead. Bev says _ honey_. Ben has to drag him out. The house collapses; they leave Eddie in there, the same Eddie that hates the sewer, that hates the water, that hates the dark.

Mike and Ben keep him from throwing himself in there with him, and Richie is crying, and Eddie has his jacket, and the last thing he said to him was _ I fucked your mom_—which is not funny, it’s not a joke—which means _ I love you, but I don’t know how to say it. _

Stan’s hands apply pressure to Richie’s when it’s over. The hotel room comes back into focus—blurry, but in focus nonetheless. Richie stares at Stan’s chest, at the shirt he must’ve been put in when he died, and brings their joined fingers to wipe at his nose. Stan doesn’t care about how gross that is, but Eddie would, and the thought makes Richie’s blood run cold.

Four. There are only _ four _ worlds Eddie gets to continue living in.

The one the Losers inhabit now is not one of them.

“You _ saw _ that?” Richie asks.

“I saw a lot more than that,” Stan tells him. “I saw every life we’ve ever lived. There is one where we miss It’s return entirely. Georgie lives. Bill never develops a stutter. We don’t meet Ben, Mike, or Bev, but we’re happy, the four of us. There’s one where everything is exactly the same, except Georgie lives. There’s still murders and kids go missing but we’re not the targets. We don’t care. It’s someone else’s problem. I never saw who. There’s another where everything goes wrong and we all die at thirteen: Bev in the Deadlights, my face eaten off entirely, Eddie not surviving that fall, Bill mauled by It-as-Georgie, Ben skewered at the Kissing Bridge, Mike’s head bashed in by Bowers.” He takes a breath he doesn’t need and bats the hair out of his face, something he doesn’t need to do because it hasn’t moved, perfectly coiffed. A nervous tick, that’s what that is. “Some are nice, but most are awful.”

Richie tries to picture these but finds he lacks the imagination to do so, his stomach roiling at the thought of his friends perishing in 1989, of not meeting three of them, of (for some reason) leaving It to be someone else’s problem. Of not being _ there_. He’d never wanted to be a hero—it’s _ summer_, Bill—but someone else who is not him? Some snot-nosed kid who can’t measure up, who just gets eaten?

Don’t tell Eddie—whichever version of him you’ve got in your world—but Richie swallows back his own vomit right then and there.

He shudders, throat burning, and asks, “Do you live in any of them?”

“Some,” admits Stan. “Like all statistics, there are many realities we could’ve entered and there are many in which I live and come back. But there are enough where I die, too, and I always die at the hands of It, and I can’t. I _ hate _ that. I don’t want to be a pawn in his game anymore. I don’t want to have _ no say_.”

“But,” Richie starts, “_you saw that_.” He shoves his glasses back up his nose, slippery with tears. “You knew who we were, what we were, and saw an infinite number of realities we could live, and you never once called. You didn’t tell Mike. You didn’t come home. You _ killed yourself_.”

“Yes, I told you,” Stan says, calm and collected despite Richie’s accusations, “I was not brave enough, but I am now, and I’m trying to help.” He ignores the way Richie opens his mouth, ready to rip him a new one, and powers through. “You getting caught in the Deadlights—that’s a convergence point. That’s where you can jump timelines. I am telling you to do that.”

“Convergence point,” Richie repeats, and he feels like he’s in eleventh grade physics all over again, trying to make sense of light waves and electric currents. “Like, _ Back to the Future_? You want me to change the past so I can change the future? Where’s my DeLorean?”

Stan flicks Richie in the forehead. “No, that’s not how…” He stops, composes himself. “You wouldn’t be _ changing _ anything. You’d be entering a different timeline, one that already _ exists_, and therefore not fucking up anything that comes after.” Almost as an afterthought, he adds, “You don’t need a car.”

“Okay, but me changing timelines, isn’t that kind of like—”

“I’m not explaining the plot to _ Back to the Future _ to you, Richie,” Stan interrupts, “nor am I getting into a heated debate with you about time travel, _ Star Trek_, _ Star Wars_, or _ Game of Thrones_.”

Richie huffs around a laugh, forehead wrinkling. “There’s no time travel in _ Game of Thrones_, Stanny.”

“I don’t think there’s any in _ Star Wars _ either,” admits Stan, mouth softening around the edges as he smiles.

Richie looks at him, _drinks him in_: the laugh lines, the cheekbones, the familiarity in the glimmer of his eye. He realizes the “I missed you without realizing” thing didn’t just apply to Eddie, whom he'd been aching for for years, but also Stan, who used to come over just to do nothing together, to sit in silence as comfortably as two people could, minding their own business. And Stan… Stan isn’t really here, which hits Richie like a well-placed punch to the gut. Take away their conversation, keep the laughter and the insults and the general giddiness of being together, and remember that Stan isn’t really here. He doesn’t get a chance to have a do-over, to be with the people who really loved him—not that Richie’s knocking Patty or anything. She’s probably the best, just like Stan.

Look at him, look at Stan, putting himself out on a limb when he doesn’t have to.

“I love you, man,” Richie tells him. He never said that a lot as a kid. He should have.

Stan blinks, startled, and that grey flush captures his cheeks again. His smile deepens. Richie wants to remember this forever. “I love you, too,” he says softly. “I mean, obviously, or else I wouldn’t be here right now, dumbass.” 

“Shut up and let me live in the moment,” Richie chides. “I didn’t realize, you know, the kind of friendships we had, they don’t make those very often.”

“No,” Stan agrees. “Some may call it magic.”

_ Magic_—that’s what is here, between them. Between all of them, but specifically right here, in this moment. There’s no other explanation. Magic and a whole lot of love. That shit transcends time. 

“Yeah,” Richie murmurs, “magic.” And then he breaks the moment, because it’s too soft for him. He reaches up to muss Stan’s hair—Stan squawks, birdlike, in protest—and slaps at him, knocking Richie’s glasses clear off his face. “So, my mystical magician,” he says grandly, groping the sheets to find them, “I’m _ not _ fucking with anything when I fall from the Deadlights?”

Stan sighs and the sound whistles. “I already answered this.”

“Tell me again,” Richie insists. “I want to get it right.”

“You’re in the Deadlights now,” Stan says. It’s still the weirdest thing Richie has ever heard, the weirdest thing he’s felt. _ You’re in the Deadlights_, but everything is exactly the same. Everything is real. God, he can’t imagine how Bev must’ve felt, in these things for as long as she had been, or Stan, for as short, his face getting fucking gnawed off the skull. “When you get out of them, you have only a short window of time to change your futures.”

“You just said I wouldn’t change anything.”

“You won’t, not really,” says Stan, who grows sick of Richie’s fingers _ just _ missing his glasses, and throws them at him. “You’ll just guide the future down a particular path. Like, did you know—if you guys had shown up a day earlier, Eddie would’ve lived. A week later, Mike would’ve gotten killed and Bill wouldn’t have survived getting the boat. If you didn’t waste time trying to run away, Bowers would’ve stabbed you instead of Eddie, and he’d have gotten you right between the ribs. There’s also an instance where my spider head eats your face, and—”

“_Wow_,” Richie enunciates, hard and sharp, “thanks, I hated that. Stop sharing.” He wipes his lenses on his shirt, inspects them, and puts them back on. He presses his mouth into a tight line, closes one eye to focus on the thumbprint he’s got smeared on his glasses, and pretends like he’s not searching Stan’s face. “How long have you known all that?”

Stan looks down, then back at him. Hooks his fingers together. “Since we were kids. Since Neibolt part one. But before you start yelling at me,” he says quickly, like he’s afraid Richie actually _ will _ (there’s only a twenty-two percent chance of it, really), “it was constantly changing. I didn’t know what to look for. I didn’t know it was _ us _ until it was already too late.”

“Twenty something years,” Richie says, low and contemplative. “You had to live through it all? Different timelines, different possibilities? No wonder you were obsessed with statistics and numbers.”

“I dreamt it, mostly,” Stan explains, “so it was easy to write off. You remember my nightmares were the worst? I had—I was really bad, that first year.”

Richie does.

He’s a lanky teenager, climbing through Eddie’s window, or Bill’s, or Stan’s, meeting the rest of them in one bedroom or another, where they all pile on top of each other, sleeping with the lights on, hidden beneath blankets and bodies and unable to move. He remembers sitting outside the bathroom door while Bev peed, knocking lightly against the wood with his fingertips, a reminder. _ I’m here_. He remembers Eddie’s clammy hand finding his under the blankets, squeezing. He remembers Bill, who needed to be brought back down after dreaming of Georgie for the umpteenth time, arm missing, teeth sharpened, crying out for him. Ben slept with his head in Mike’s lap, and Mike slept sitting up, pillows stacked on either side of him, against a wall. Richie didn’t like to be a nuisance, so he shoved his face in Eddie’s neck, or Ben’s side, or slept physically on top of Bill, curled up, because the contact, the body heat, kept the dreams away. Kept _ It _ away.

But Stan—

_ Stan_.

He’d be the last to fall asleep and the first to wake up. He’d thrash in the night, so he always had free rein of the bed, even if it wasn’t his. He threw himself off it, most times, just to escape his own mind. He’d often check up on them, staring intensely, poking their arms, watching them breathe. Sometimes Bev would wrestle her way into the bed with him, throw her arms around his middle, and squeeze. Stan would cry, and then Richie would cry, and then there was no coming back from that one.

“Anyway,” Stan blurts, pulling them out of their collective reveries, “no, you won’t actually change anything. You’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve had a lot of time to figure it out,” says Stan. “Time works differently when you’re dead. It feels like I’ve been here for eons. It’s only been like, what—”

“Two days, I think.”

“Right, yeah. Feels like much longer. Watching your ass doesn’t help, either, you’re so fucking problematic,” Stan complains. “I can’t believe it took you this long to take me seriously.”

Richie quirks a brow. “Who says I’m taking you seriously?”

“Richard, I swear to—”

“To God or the turtle?” Richie snickers. “Okay, but in my defense, you were sending me _ birds_, what the fuck was I supposed to do with that?”

“Uh, wonder why the only birds you ever saw were at night and staring right fucking at you?” Stan suggests.

Richie sends him a look, which he is not sure conveys how he truly feels. “You sent _ two_,” he elaborates, in case Stan doesn’t get it. “How was I supposed to know you were trying to talk to me?”

“I like birds,” Stan deadpans. “It’s literally the only thing all y’all could remember about me.”

“_All y’all_,” Richie crows. “Well, I do declare! We’ve got ourselves a Southern gentleman here!”

“Oh my _ god_.”

“Okay, I will admit I am not very observant,” Richie tells him, flipping the switch and sounding like his usual mix of Maine-meets-California. “I’ll work on it.”

“Sure you will,” Stan mutters. Louder he says, “I’ve seen it happen over and over. All you have to do is get Eddie out of the way of Pennywise. The four times he doesn’t die are the times he doesn’t get struck in the _ch-ch-ch-uh-chest—_"

Richie _ feels _ his heart rush to his throat, has the horrifying experience of choking, and he scrambles to claw at his neck, to free it, to rid himself of the building pressure. It’s another panic attack, he knows it; he’s helped Eddie with enough of those, and he tries those breathing exercises they all perfected, but it doesn’t stop Stan from stuttering.

Stan’s face darkens, a muddy gray as opposed to silver, and he snaps, “I’m not done, _ no_.”

“_Stan_.” Richie grabs at him, like that’s going to stop it, whatever this is, and he thinks, quite honestly, he’s going to _ die_, the way Stan is squeezing back. Like he doesn’t want this to happen. “What’s going on?”

“He found me,” Stan gasps out. Richie’s fingers _ hurt_. “Georgie must not have… I must’ve spent too much time here.”

Richie looks at the clock on the bedside table, the one he was searching for initially. It blinks back at him, five minutes past the time it’d been when he first spotted it, you know, right before Stan made him piss his pants. “I don’t get it.”

“Time works differently,” Stan reminds him. “Look, I’m going to—I have to leave. Before It can get me. I can… maybe I can heh-heh-help later, if he doesn’t—” Stan surges forward, cups Richie’s face, presses their foreheads together. Richie must imagine it, but Stan smells exactly as he remembers, like summer and warmth, fireplaces, safety, and _ home_. He thinks he cries again.

Knows he does, when he sniffs and it’s wet.

“When I wake up, will I remember this?” Richie asks.

“If you believe,” Stan answers. “Belief is really powerful, remember? It’s how we did it the first time. We believed in each other and we believed It could die. Now you have to bbbbbbbbbb-buh-lieve in yourself, Rich, and I know it’s hard for you, but you haaaaaaaaaa-ve to.” He hiccoughs. “Remember who you are, remember what you’ve done, remember that we love you and we trust you, even when you annoy the shit out of us. And remember you never really annoyed us in the first place."

Richie nods, nods, nods. Fists Stan’s shirt, thinks, _If belief works well enough, then stay_. He thinks Stan does the same, but it’s no use. It’s pointless. He’s not here to save himself, he’s here to save Eddie, and subsequently save Richie and the rest of their motley crew, who don’t deserve another L this lifetime, or any of the ones that come after.

“Remember the baseball bat, and how you rallied the troops, and don’t let him convince you otherwise. You’re important and you’re special and it never fucking mattered that you were gay. It is banking on everyone being exactly the same, being a-a-a-a-a-ahhh”—Stan stops, breathes, sighs—“_afraid _ of the same things they were when they were younger. Puh-puh-prove him _ wrong_.”

“I need you to stay, Stan,” Richie forces out. It's all he can think about. He can't watch Stan leave him again. He can't hold him in his hand and then let him go. It was supposed to be the seven of them. The seven of them against the world.

“I _ can’t_,” Stan wails, and he sounds young again, petrified of a house.

“_Please_,” Richie begs, “Stan, _ please_.”

Stan fumbles to press his palm to Richie’s heart, movements jerky. “I’ll be here,” he says. “I’m always right here. I’ve never left.”

Richie reaches up to hold Stan’s hand back—he may never be able to do this again—and when he flits their fingers together, they feel slimy and sticky. “Stan,” he says, startled.

“Ignore it,” Stan mutters, closing his other hand around the cut in his wrist that’s beginning to bleed out, rushes of dark blood staining the comforter, Stan’s pants. “Richie, be honest with yourself. Be ha-ah-happy. You _ deserve _ it. Do you hear me? You deserve it. You deserve everything you’ve ever wanted, and you’re _ allowed _ to want it.”

The blood pools between them, warm on Richie’s toes, soaking the knees of his jeans. Stan grits his teeth, jaw clenched, and says, “Try to wake up on your own. It might make it easier.”

“How?”

Stan’s teeth chatter with the effort of answering, his face screwing up with concentration. He has the solution; he can tell Richie what to do; he was always telling Richie what to do. But dark sludge comes out of his mouth instead of words, making his skin paler than it already is. Was.

He sniffs, wipes his mouth frantically, but that only makes it messier. Blood and gunk mix all over him, and then he’s blurting, “I promise,” and he’s being pulled back like he’s a marionette on a string.

With a loud, ear-shattering _ pop!_ Stan disappears. It’s unclear if he did that on his own or if It finally found him, eager to destroy him further. Eager to punish him.

Richie stares without seeing, moves without feeling, and is in the bathroom. He scrubs his hands under the faucet. It is scalding, burning his skin, drying it out, and he cleans and cleans and cleans, unable to get the gore off. No amount of soap will do. He wants to rip his skin off, grow it new. He thinks about asking Eddie when he gets back how he cleaned himself off after the leper threw up on him, but then gets confused about the timelines and the Eddies and the real-but-not-real worlds, and misses Stan all over again. 

“Stupid,” he mutters, pulling his glasses off and running those under the water as well. “Crazy. I’m crazy.”

He buffs the lenses out with one of those fluffy towels, puts them back on, tries to compose himself. Fingers hold onto the lip of the sink like a lifeline. Eyes bore into his reflection, picking him apart. He’s a hot mess. He looks worse than he did when Mike called, vomiting over the side of a fucking building, but _hey_, at least he didn’t throw up this time! Maybe it’s not a gut reaction to horror. Maybe he’s adapting. What a good skill to have. Add that to his résumé: Does not _always_ throw up when terrified, just sometimes. Depends on the day.

He’s so busy scrutinizing himself that he almost misses the whisper of his name, tentative and soft. He turns his head, neck all but snapping, heart thumping in his chest. It’s Stan. It has to be Stan, as quiet as a mouse to keep It from finding him. He came back to tell Richie what to do, how to wake up. 

He makes three mistakes.

First: He does not take a moment to think.

Second: He bolts for the door.

Third: He stares Pennywise the Dancing Clown right in the eye and fucking says, “Oh, hey,” like they’re _ friends._

(Remember that thing about vomiting? Richie may be incorrect in his conclusion.)

Pennywise is larger than life, towering over him, red painted smile shining darker than ever. Something drips from it to the floor as Its grin widens. Richie watches the movement, gut twisting, and looks up. Slow. Careful.

It’s a mirage. It’s a hallucination. It has to be. It’s _ not real_.

He blinks.

Pennywise is still there.

He blinks again.

Pennywise is still there and he says, “Thought you could have a sleepover without inviting me, Richie?”

Richie doesn’t answer, and ends up thinking about everything this piece of shit did to them. What he _made_ them. Stan, bloody in a bathtub, terrified of coming back home. Eddie, who never grew out of what he was, lacking a future where he can. Bill, who lost a brother, who writes horror stories to cope with something he can't remember, who has the kind of survivor's guilt that could kill a person. Mike, who stayed in a town that hated him just to keep it safe. Bev, who definitely got abused by her father and then abused by her husband, who knew it all but not enough. Ben, who never saw him as they did, just saw himself as fat, who builds things so people can hide. He thinks of himself, funny because it’s easier to be something he’s not, a teenager who spent his whole life afraid of himself. An adult who never had to deal with those consequences, an adult who _ forgot_.

It's an out of body experience he’s having, watching as Its face cracks and contorts, as the mouth elongates, as sharp teeth multiply and lengthen out. He sees fears he’s never known before in that mouth, fears that belonged to children before and after him, and hears the taunts he’d gotten himself, from Pennywise and from his bullies. Over and over it plays and Pennywise advances, his gums tearing up, bloody and raw, his eyes rolling. He sees his friends’ faces, young and old, five to eighteen then skipping to forty because he missed what came in between. It wants him to see their deaths, but Richie just sees them as they are. 

Eddie’s smile is still blinding, and Bill’s eyes still crinkle at the corners, and Bev’s cheeks are always permanently flushed. Mike’s got the same gentle eyes, and Ben’s lost the weight everywhere but in his dimples, and Stan's constantly egging him on, one eyebrow raised as if to say, _I bet you can't do that, Richie_.

Sometime in Richie’s past, Bev gives Eddie an iron spike and tells him, “This kills monsters if you believe it does.”

Sometime in Richie’s future, Eddie sees him in the Deadlights, wants to be brave, and says, “If you believe it does,” and throws it.

Now, Richie winds his arm back as far as it can go, trembling the way it is, and punches his fist straight down Pennywise’s fucking throat.

* * *

Bev calls. It goes to voicemail.

Bev calls. It goes to voicemail.

Bev calls. It goes to voicemail.

* * *

Time works differently here.

Time is a social construct.

Time is subjective.

(Minutes later?) (Hours later?) Eddie bangs on the bathroom door, knocks swift and frantic, never ceasing. Richie can almost hear his knuckles scrape against the paint, wonders if he accidentally breaks skin with his insistence.

Richie remains silent, huddled in the bathtub, water cold above him. How and when he got in here is a mystery; he doesn’t have a firm grip on what happened after he ripped Pennywise inside out, shoving his arm so far down his throat he convulsed around it. His hand aches, skin of his knuckles split like he punched a wall one too many times. And he did that in college, amped up and drunk, but he never hurt like this before. His shirt is in tatters from the teeth that marked his arm, lines of cut flesh stinging under the spray of the shower.

And now there is Eddie.

Richie stares at the door separating them, remembers _ Timelines_, and _ You’re in the Deadlights_, and _ One where Eddie lives_, and _ Magic_. He thinks, _ Eddie will die. Eddie has four chances and you have to make sure he gets to them. _ He thinks, _ Eddie, go away. _

Eddie does not go away.

Everything that Stan said raises questions. What is real here, in this world It put him in? What are the memories and what are the teenage fantasies? Did he kiss Eddie ever, in real life? Did he only have bickering and toeing the line and being _ afraid_? Was Richie ever brave? Did he ever go for it? Was he always scared?

Did he look at Eddie, brilliant in the sunlight, and bike to the Kissing Bridge to confess his love in carved letters instead of telling him straight to his face? Did Eddie know?

Did he kiss him in the clubhouse? Did he kiss him in his bed? He must’ve. _ He must’ve_. Beep, beep, Richie. _Beep. Beep._

Richie tugs the wet hair out of his face. He doesn’t want Eddie to come in, but he _ wants _ Eddie to come in. It’s unclear which part of him will win this tug of war.

The knocking subsides, but Eddie does not push his way through, always respectful to others’ privacy because he had none. He merely says, “Richie?”

Richie blinks the water out of his eyes.

Eddie tells him, “Bev called.”

_ Right, and what will she decide this is? Another Deadlights-related incident? She knows because she was stuck in them too? She thinks she understands? How will It play this one when I know where I am and the rest of you don’t? You think I’m the Richie that— _

“She told me she thinks something happened,” Eddie continues, “and she tried to reach you but you didn’t pick up. Are you okay? Can I come in?”

Yes.

No.

Richie drops his forehead to his knees, takes several deep breaths, and runs through what he knows again. _ You deserve it. You’re allowed. It is always going to be this easy. That _ was _ Eddie. _

Eddie lowers his voice, says, “Okay,” but the word slices through Richie like a knife. It makes his arm itch; he presses it against the wall to keep from irritating it. “When you’re—when you’re ready, I’ll be out here. I’m going to try to get a change of bedsheets without the staff asking too many questions.”

_ Right, do that. Go away. Clean up my— _

“Wait,” he croaks. He has to say it twice to get his voice functioning properly. His throat is hoarse, like he spent a significant time screaming, and maybe he has. He doesn’t know. His brain is blanking, full of infinite, empty space, similar to that of the many alcohol-induced blackouts he’s experienced in his life. “You can see that?”

That mess—it’s Stan. It’s rivulets of blood, of life, staining the comforter and the sheets in this goddamn hotel room. On the bright side—if there even _ is _ one—at least he has a worse experience than vomiting with nerves over a dumbass stand up routine he never wrote a single word of himself.

Stan’s hands are phantom touches in his own, gripping tight, not wanting to leave. It was almost like he was afraid he was going to die all over again. Maybe he will, just for helping Richie, for not getting out of the way. For _ spending time _ with him. Maybe he’ll have to relive the pain of slitting his wrists again, the terror he felt when Mike called. The relief he felt, thinking he’d escaped It, only to find out he was still playing the game, he was just doing it _ dead _ and _ by himself_. His only company, it seems, is Bill’s kid brother, who can’t be that good at conversation.

But Eddie sees it. Eddie sees the mess he and Stan made, and if he opens the bathroom door, lets the light spill on the carpet at his feet, he’ll see what happens when you try to turn a clown inside out.

And that means:

This is part of this world. It’s become a plot point. 

Eddie _ sees _ it. Richie wonders what he can say about it. Will he get tongue-tied trying to explain, like Stan does, ripping his jaw open and choking over the words? What are the rules when suddenly you know you’re not where you’re supposed to be? Or, worse: Was it always meant to happen? What happens to Eddie and Richie in this world?

“Yes,” Eddie confirms, and Richie feels his stomach flip. Nerves? Excitement? _ Unclear_. “What happened? Bev said she thought she felt something, and Ben said he couldn’t remember if we got all the eggs—”

“Eggs? What eggs?” Richie demands. There were no eggs. Whose eggs?

“The ones in the lair,” Eddie explains. “Ben couldn’t see them all, but he tried—”

“There were no eggs,” Richie says. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. It was just us and that fucking clown. No one would procreate with that thing."

“There's such a thing as asexual reproduction, asshole," Eddie snaps. "It definitely had laid eggs, or given birth, or whatever, and there were—there were _ more_, I get if you’re confused because you were in the Deadlights, but—”

“I am _ not confused_,” Richie snaps, and he hears the way Eddie recoils from the door. Can see it, too, if he lets himself. He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his hands into them, and breathes very deliberately through his nose.

“It’s okay if you are,” Eddie murmurs, “but Bev says—”

“She didn’t say _ shit_,” Richie says. “The eggs aren’t real. She’s not real. It’s not real. _ I’m _ not real. You’re not real.” _ Real _ doesn’t even sound like a word anymore, but it’s all Richie can say. He’s repeating himself, he’s repeating himself, he’s repeating himself. His hysteria is growing, festering, water all but drowning him, and _ it’s not real it’s not real it’s not real you’re not here I’m not here you don’t actually love me— _

Eddie shoulders the door open so forcefully it slams against the opposite wall. It will probably leave a mark. They’ll have to pay for that.

“The fuck you mean I don’t _ actually_—what the fuck happened to you?”

“_It _ happened,” he spits. And that is true, but it’s not because of eggs or whatever the fuck happened here. It’s because Richie isn’t allowed the things he wants. He’s never been, no matter what Stan said. No matter what his mother told him when he was small. He was always destined to be unhappy. He lifts his head from where he’s inspecting his fingers (pruned now), and lets out a high-pitched whine when he sees Eddie, there in the doorway.

Physically, he looks the same, but he is not wearing the shirt he wore when he left Richie earlier, and Richie remembers that one. It was pink and it was cute and the fabric was soft under his cheek where he laid there, listening to him breathe and grumble under his breath about cars. This one—it’s a polo, sure, but it’s white, and Eddie would never be caught dead in a white shirt. He could _ stain _ it. Do you know how easy it is to fuck up a white shirt? Richie does because Eddie told him in great detail once, how gravity and fate and what-fucking-ever else are against you when you wear white, like the universe _ wants _ you to ruin your clothes.

Someone is rewriting the story.

_ When I wake up, will I remember this? _

Eddie kicks off his shoes, pads further into the bathroom, and doesn’t even make a face when he steps in puddles. He perches on the side of the tub. “Tell me what happened,” he says, and then, “If you want.”

Richie opens his mouth, then closes it. He wants to tell him, but he’s not sure what will come of it. He can’t forget it though, and he’s so, _ so _ scared of that, so he merely says, “I talked to Stan.”

“Yeah?” Eddie does not look at him like he’s crazy. A good sign. “When?”

“While you were gone,” answers Richie. He blinks, water clinging to his lashes and blurring his vision. “How is the car?”

“Dented but not sticking,” Eddie says. “We’re good to go once we map out a way to L.A.”

“Did it cost a lot?”

“Nah, like two hundred bucks.” Eddie bends down, rolls his socks off. “They said I was lucky I didn’t get hit harder, you know, or else there’d be a lot more damage and it’d be more expensive.”

“That’s good.” Richie stares at Eddie’s toes. Counts them. Five and five. Ten. He never took his own socks off and now he can feel them, soggy on his feet. “Hey, Eddie?”

“Yeah?”

He swallows roughly, leaning forward to tug on Eddie’s sleeve before he can chicken out. Fuck the consequences, right? “You weren’t wearing this shirt when you left,” he says. “Did you change?”

“No,” Eddie says. “I was always wearing this.”

“White gets dirty easily,” Richie tells him.

Eddie huffs, rolling his eyes. “Stop teasing.”

“I’m not teasing.”

“You said”—and Eddie makes a fucking mockery of Richie’s voice then, leaning more towards mean than playful, which is wrong. Richie is never_ mean _ to Eddie—“ _ white gets dirty easily_. Yeah, I know, that’s why I don’t wear—” He blinks and looks down at his shirt. “This isn’t… I was wearing—”

“Pink,” Richie says. “You were wearing pink.”

“Yeah.” Eddie pulls his palm down his chest, pinches the fabric. It is white. The shirt is fucking white, and it’s also soaked, and Eddie does not care about that. “It was pink. What—_Richie_.”

He watches it, too, the polo shimmering from one color to the next until it’s the same as it was three hours ago, and then he pulls Eddie into the tub with him.

“What the fuck,” Eddie shrieks, hair instantly matting to his forehead. “This is _ cold_, asshole.”

Richie blindly turns the valve to the left, raising the temperature, and stares at Eddie. “Timelines,” he blurts.

“Bless you,” Eddie says, brow pulling down into a frown. Richie presses his finger to the wrinkle there, and tries to rub it smooth. Eddie slaps him away.

Richie grabs his wrist. “That’s what Stan told me. When I talked to him. There are all these timelines, different ways our lives could go. This is one of them. I don’t think it’s mine.”

_ I know it’s not_.

“Of course it is,” Eddie retorts. “You’re here, aren’t you? What the fuck do you mean _ timelines_? Like this is, I don’t know, some shitty sci-fi movie or we’re superheroes, written and rewritten by other people?”

“Spaghetti Man,” Richie says solemnly. “The hero we deserve.”

“Shut up. Are you okay? Are you going crazy on me? Have you gotten enough sleep?”

“No, probably, and no,” Richie answers. “But yes, timelines. Different ones. Stan knows them all and he’s trying to help. You know how I’ve been dreaming about him?”

“Yeah, because you’re grieving.”

“No. I mean, yes, I’m grieving, but.” Richie shifts closer, lowering his voice, afraid It will hear him talk to Eddie. “It’s because of the Deadlights.”

“Because you were in them,” Eddie says. “Like Bev. You see Stan because of them? Like, his death?”

Richie moves even more into his personal space, and Eddie hooks his arm around his waist, heaving him into his side. It’s uncomfortable and Richie’s knees hurt, but he drops his chin to Eddie’s shoulder anyway. “I’m still in them, Eds,” he murmurs. The water is louder than he is, but Eddie hears anyway, tilting his head. “Everyone sees something different in them, and I guess It hates me the most.”

“Why?”

“Because It is showing me a world where I get what I want,” Richie mumbles. He presses his nose into Eddie’s neck, nuzzles him, and bites his tongue so he doesn’t cry. He’s a fucking baby if he cries again, goddamn. “Stan says eventually I’ll wake up and I won’t—it won’t be this.”

Eddie brushes his fingers through Richie’s hair, away from the back of his neck, and leaves his thumb at the base, right on the knot. “You came out of the Deadlights, Rich. It was just another dream. Maybe we should knock you out tonight.”

“If it was a dream, explain my arm,” Richie suggests. “Explain the blood everywhere. Tell me how I got out of the Deadlights. Tell me what _ you _ remember, not what I’ve said.”

It’s a threat at its core, but it is also Richie begging. _ Please_, he wants to say. _ Please tell me it was a dream and I’m really here. You’re really here. Tell me you don’t die. Tell me there’s no chance of that. Tell me I'm hallucinating, and that's not Stan talking to me. I'll go to a therapist. I'll go to six therapists. Please don't make me go back to Neibolt._

Eddie’s body stiffens. “You were in the Deadlights and then… and then… you were out of them. I don’t…” He digs his nails into Richie’s skin. It would hurt if Richie cared. “I did something. I got you out of them.” Richie’s heart lifts, hope flooding through him. “I… used my inhaler?” 

“No.” Richie sags. “You did not.”

They are silent, sitting there in the tub, until Eddie nudges at Richie’s face to get him to look at him. “What did Stan say?”

“That I’m still in the Deadlights,” Richie tells him.

“Okay, yeah, besides that.”

Richie hates the fog that comes over him, trying to muddle with his brain. He grits his teeth and thinks so hard his head hurts, but he manages, “This isn’t real, even though it feels like it is, and I need to wake up or else—”

He stops short, not because he doesn’t know, but because he doesn’t want to say it. Maybe that’s his problem. Maybe he can’t deal with reality. Maybe he was always like that. The voices, the jokes, the tomfoolery: It was better than real life. 

“Or else?” Eddie presses. The way he’s looking at him, Richie thinks he knows. Richie hates his facial expression, wants to smooth it out. Wants Eddie to look at him like he's been, all happy and excited. Full of _life_. 

Richie swallows around the urge to throw up and says, “Or else the you that pairs up with me will die.” He inhales shakily, coughs on the exhale. The water is still running hot but he’s so, so cold. “There are four chances for us to have this and if I don’t—the world I go back to doesn’t automatically give us that. I have to remember what Stan said.” He squeezes Eddie’s knee, the closest thing he can grab. “I don’t know what happened here, I don’t know how much of it is real and how much of it is just some sick prank. I didn’t mean to overstep or—or take advantage of you, or—I know I’m not your perfect match, I’m not the Richie you’re supposed to have—"

Eddie’s mouth is wet against his when he kisses him, swallowing the rest of Richie’s babbled apology, and Richie whimpers, just a little bit. Considers pushing him away, too, but inevitably doesn’t. Eddie takes the lead on this one—but let’s be real, Eddie’s always been taking the lead—and Richie falls victim to him, letting him all but suck a bruise into skin of his throat.

“What,” he starts to say, but Eddie cuts him off with, “All Richies are my Richie. We’ve been a perfect match since we were fucking eight years old. It doesn’t matter what world or timeline or whatever we’re in.”

“But—”

“Shut up.” Eddie presses his thumb to Richie’s bottom lip and Richie blinks at him, eyes wide and owlish, like he’s got those huge-ass glasses from the eighties still on his face. “You’re _ it _ for me,” he says. “I’d say that to any Richie that came my way, and so it’s you, and you’re not supposed to be here, but maybe you are. So It is playing a really cruel trick on you, that’s what It _ does_. Don’t take it that way. Take it as a—I don't know—a reminder. I don’t know what you have to do, and don’t tell me, I could fuck it up, but getting out of the Deadlights is really fucking disorienting, I imagine, so just remember that what I say here applies to every version of me you’ll ever encounter. _ You’re it for me_,” he repeats. “I have never loved anyone like I love you. I will love you until I fucking die, which will _ not _ be at the hands of Pennywise the fucking clown, Richard Tozier. If I find out you let me die in that fucking sewer, I will haunt the shit out of you.”

"You believe me?" Richie asks.

"Of course I do," Eddie replies, no hesitation. Sincerely. Looking at him with those eyes of his, big and trusting. "I always believe you."

Richie's heart does a little flip. "Right. I always believe you too." He tries to bite Eddie's finger, still on his lip. "You really going to haunt me? What about the me that's actually supposed to be here?"

“I’ll bring him too,” Eddie replies, like that’s a sentence that makes any fucking sense. “We’ll destroy you. I deserve to be happy in every timeline that allows it. So do you. Don’t fuck it up. I’m serious. I will be so pissed.”

“Right. Of course. You don’t think I’m insane?”

“Hard to find anything insane these days,” Eddie admits, “or ever, really. Sanity is limited anyway. Who cares.”

“Sure, absolutely,” Richie says. “And you’re positive you’re not It, or the clown, or anything that is not you?”

Eddie shoots him a look, almost offended by the question. “Yeah, pretty positive, actually.”

“Okay. Stan said as much, but it doesn’t hurt to double check.” Richie smiles at him, a little lift of the corners of his mouth.

“Alright, let’s figure out how to wake you up.”

“_Wait_,” Richie says quickly. His cheeks flush when Eddie stops, mid-motion to look at him, one leg already on the wet tiles. Eddie’s eyes twinkle when he turns back to him. “Would it be weird if we kissed again? Is that, like, are we cheating on each other, or not, since we’re the same people? Like, I know I’m not the Richie you’re gagging for, but I am _a_ Richie, and I am, apparently, it for you, and you act just like _ my _ Eddie does, so does that mean if we were to—and all the things we’ve done, it’ll be, like, infidelity—”

“Beep, beep, Trashmouth,” Eddie retorts, nose wrinkling as he tries to fight off his amusement. “I’m still technically married so I think it’s for the best if we just don’t go there. But fuck you if you think we’re kissing in this fucking tub. I can’t believe we sat in it for this long, Jesus Christ. My joints are going to be cracking for _ days_.”

“So sexy,” Richie teases.

“How long have you been in here anyway? You better take your socks off. You don’t want to get mold in between your toes. And your pants. Oh my god, you’re soaked. Take it all off.”

“You just trying to get me naked, Kaspbrak?”

Eddie snorts. “Trying to save your life so you can save mine is more like it,” he says. “You can die of pneumonia after you get me out of that sewer.”

“Didn’t realize you had a hero kink, Eddie baby,” Richie coos, reaching his hand out so he can help him up.

“You’d be the worst fucking hero of them all,” Eddie says. “Annoying and entitled.”

“And yet you still wanna kiss me,” Richie sing-songs. “You wanna kiss all the versions of me you can get your little hands on.”

Instead of making a comment about the size thing, Eddie flushes a dark red and says softly, “Yeah, I do.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which eddie and richie reference far too much pop culture for their own good and love holding hands, eddie is a little shit but also a genius, richie is confused about the timeline thing, and i recycle writing from chapter one because i can 
> 
> (aka the moment we've all been waiting for)

“No,” Richie says. “No. Absolutely not. I can’t believe you’d even suggest that. Why would you—why are you _ smiling_?”

“So frazzled,” Eddie replies, easy smirk on his face widening to a grin. “So cute.”

Richie feels his mouth start to drop open and hurriedly closes it, biting the inside of his cheek. “I’m having an out of body experience,” he says around the sharp sting. “This is like _ Freaky Friday _but worse.”

“Which one? Jodie Foster or Lindsey Lohan?”

“Lohan, obviously,” Richie replies. “You’re Jamie Lee Curtis.”

“Sick,” Eddie comments, and Richie wants to kiss his stupid face, but he’s still kind of confused about what this _ is_, even though Eddie isn’t. “I love Jamie Lee Curtis.”

“Yeah, she’s alright,” Richie says.

“_Alright_?” Eddie parrots. “She’s amazing. Do you not remember _ Halloween_?”

“Okay, she’s good, she’s great, she’s a gem,” Richie says. “And she’s got a little more brownie points than you right now cuz I don’t think she’d suggest _ running me over with her car_.”

“What?” Eddie retorts. “You don’t know what that’ll do. Maybe a near-death experience will jolt you awake. I don’t know. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

Richie points an accusing finger at him, taking deliberate steps backwards, so big Eddie has to notice them. “We don’t know what happens if I die here. What if when I die in the Deadlights, I die in the real world? What if I’m stuck here, but dead out there? I’m not going to risk it because of your gross fantasy of killing me.”

“So you’ll be here with me,” Eddie replies with a shrug. “What’s so bad about that?”

“I could name twenty things,” Richie shoots back.

“Name them,” Eddie challenges. “Do it right now.”

“Okay, maybe not twenty,” Richie mumbles, and then louder, “But I’m not going to just _ abandon _ my friends because I can—because I’ll be _ here_, with you, and I’ll…” _ Have what I always wanted. It knows me. Knows my heart, so It gave me something guaranteed because I wouldn’t want to go back to something unsure. Fucking clown. _ “There’s got to be a different way. Think of something else.”

Eddie reaches his palm out and Richie takes it only after a moment’s hesitation, flitting their fingers together. Eddie brushes his thumb along the inside of his wrist, sending a pleasant jolt up Richie’s forearm to his elbow.

“I fantasized about a bunch of things,” Eddie tells him, “but never killing you.”

Richie feels like the sun has taken up permanent residence in his cheeks, burning him from the inside out. The flush must be something fierce, the way Eddie’s eying it, stare glittering with amusement and—and something else Richie wants to put a cap on real fast but finds himself enthralled with. It’s like Eddie wants to rip him open and devour him whole, the kind of stare he’d found himself on the other end of time and time again when they were younger, when they were dancing around each other, kissing and touching but not labeling themselves for fear of Bowers, and their backwards town, and Eddie’s mom, who already thought Richie was dirty, who would’ve taken Eddie from Richie earlier than she had.

Richie says, “What the fuck,” because Eddie is supposed to be the one blushing, not him, that’s not how this works, and because he’s not supposed to want as badly as he does. He needs to find a way to wake up and get to _ his _ Eddie, save _ his _ Eddie, kiss _ his _Eddie.

(And maybe this is the one he’ll get, when it’s all said and done.)

(Maybe the déjà vu Stan mentioned will come at them both full force once they’re out of that sewer, on the path to the rest of their lives.)

Eddie scooches forward, takes the pads of his fingertips and presses them to Richie’s face. He hums under his breath—this Eddie does that a lot—and holds his jaw. Tilts it. Exposes the side of Richie’s neck, drags a nail down the length of it to the collarbone.

“Wait,” Richie blurts, Eddie’s face coming closer. Their noses bump, and Richie can’t see him that well, almost having to cross his eyes to make him out. “I’m not—is this—I still don’t really understand—we have to figure out how to wake me up.”

“Maybe I should fuck you awake,” Eddie says against him, breath warm and lips close, but not close enough.

Richie whines, an involuntary sound, and lets Eddie pull his head back with a hand in his hair. “I don’t think I’ll be much good back there if my last memory is you…” The words get caught up on his tongue and they come out a jumbled mess, breathless with an uncomfortable mixture of fear and want. He coughs. “I’m not who you’re supposed to say shit like that to.”

“Yes, you are,” Eddie says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. 

“You sound so confident about that,” Richie murmurs. He doesn’t fight too hard on it—his head hurts when he thinks about it too much—and he lets Eddie slip the patterned shirt from his shoulders, who looks at it like it’s personally offended him.

Eddie shrugs. “Timelines exist. Whatever. Doesn’t mean we’re any different. Doesn’t mean I’m not in love with you in every universe.”

“Sappy,” Richie replies, throat closing up. 

“Sure,” Eddie provides, “but it’s true and you know it. There could be a million yous and a million mes and we’d still end up finding each other somehow. We’d still end up doing all the same things, which is where that déjà vu comes into play. You’re in the Deadlights, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real. It’s real because it’s _ us_.” 

“This is so confusing,” Richie says.

“Then don’t think about it,” suggests Eddie. “You don’t want me to run you over, which is fine, but we can’t just spend the time _ not _ doing anything. It would be suspicious, since the powers that be are trying to convince both of us we’re just crazy. Like, fuck, we _ saw _ my shirt change colors, man, and those texts we sent everyone else? They rewrote themselves.”

(The texts:

_ Richie says he’s still in the Deadlights_, Eddie sent.

Ben replied, _ Yeah, something weird is happening here, too. Bev’s hair is long and brown but I remember it being short and red? _

Mike said, _ I am finding it hard to remember what happened in Derry. Was I there with you?_

It had taken Bill an hour to answer them and he merely wrote, _ I have an email confirmation of my flight to LAX, but I’m in London. _

It wasn’t clear if Bev meant to send the keysmash she did, but after it came _ My hair is definitely short and red I’m looking right at it. Was Stan in our grade or in the one below was he sick?_

When Richie went to answer them all, to say _ Timelines, Stan said timelines_, all the messages were different.

Eddie’d said, “Fuck,” and went to send his again, to say _ Richie says he’s still in the Deadlights_, but once he pressed send, the text read _ Richie says in the Deadlights he saw all of our deaths too. _ He tried to send the original over and over, but it kept loading on Richie’s screen as _ Richie says in the Deadlights he saw all of our deaths too_. Five times, same message, even though he meant to say something else.

He said, _ Sorry bad connection_, and locked eyes with Richie, wide and confused, as Bev said, _ Oh honey. It’s awful, isn’t it? Let me know if you want to talk. _

Mike said, _ It’s over now. Remember that it’s not real. We’re all here. _

Richie shut his phone off. Left it on the nightstand, threw his glasses on the pillow, and shoved the heels of his palms into his eyes so hard he saw stars.)

Eddie tacks on, “What are we gonna do? Sit around and _ not _ touch each other? We’ve never done that even once in our lives.”

“I guess,” Richie says, memories racing through his mind like a slideshow. Dunking Eddie under the water in the quarry, hoping he’d pull him down with him to create their own world for as long as they could hold their breaths. Sitting too close, thigh against thigh. Legs tangled in the hammock. Feet in his lap at the movies. Eddie pretending he didn’t know any combos in Street Fighter so Richie’d have to guide his hands over the buttons. Pressing against him from behind, back to chest, when Eddie couldn’t reach something on the top shelf. “Accidentally” rolling into Eddie when they slept on the floor during sleepovers, hooking his body around his. Complaining he was cold in the winter so Eddie and his seven layers would wind themselves around him, arms and legs locked at his waist, holding on like a tiny koala heater. 

Even older still, years after forgetting each other: arm wrestling at a table, leaning in too close to insult each other, holding hands, _ You’re braver than you think_, glued to his side as they opened closet doors. Never too far, always a breath away. _ EddieandRichie_, _ RichieandEddie_, never Richie-space-and-space-Eddie.

“I guess is not yes,” Eddie says.

Richie blinks at him, doesn’t remember when he moved away from him, says, “I mean, yes, obviously, but—”

“But,” Eddie prompts.

“What if I wake up and I can’t stop it?” Richie asks. “What if I fuck it all up and I’m just stuck with this, what could have been, and—”

He cuts himself off, swallowing the words, but he can see it. Everything Stan showed him, he feels it like he’s lived it, and he can’t imagine what it would be like for that to be his reality. Being held back by Ben and Mike, _ yelling_, watching Bev jump into the quarry, imagining seven splashes instead of five, deliberately dropping his glasses so he could pretend they were all there, thirteen and stupid, trying to drown each other in games of Chicken. Crying and missing Eddie, who he’d just gotten back.

His heart constricts in his throat, its new home, and he heaves out a strangled breath. He’s fine. He is fine. _ Do not think about it, Trashmouth. Don’t focus on it. It hasn’t happened. You don’t have to live it. _

Eddie’s fingers brush the hair from his face. “You can do it. I believe in you,” he says. “We can think of other ways to wake you, if that’s what you want. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Do you remember wha—”

“No,” Richie bursts out. “No, I—please kiss me, I’m so—I don’t—_please_.”

Eddie doesn’t have to be told twice, and it’s not like Richie is giving him much of a choice, grabbing his face and pulling him closer. Their mouths slot together and it is kind of painful, the way their teeth clash with the force of Richie’s desperation. Eddie takes a hand to his cheek, tilts his head down and to the left, and slows them down, wet and measured. The tension in Richie’s shoulders travels to his stomach, frenzied heat swirling in his gut, fattening up his cock until it is hard against his zipper, against Eddie’s knee.

Bodies shift, Eddie pressing his leg against Richie’s bulge, and he hisses at the pressure, hands trembling at the base of Eddie’s neck. He bucks up, once, bites down on Eddie’s tongue, and does it again.

“More or just kisses?” Eddie asks, pulling away to mouth at Richie's jawline.

Richie breathes out what he hopes is _Touch me _ and keens when Eddie moves again, taking away the friction of his leg to tug Richie’s pants down, underwear and all bunching at his knees. Richie kicks them off, one sock following their lead, and shudders when Eddie wraps his hand around his length, fingers tentative in their hold, slipping over the tip. Richie rolls his hips into Eddie’s palm, slaps him out of the way when he starts to get going, and all but tears at Eddie’s belt loops.

“Alright, alright,” Eddie laughs, “and you call me the impatient one?”

“Mhm,” Richie says against his mouth. “Worse than me.”

“Sure,” Eddie replies. “Stop. You’re going to rip my pants.”

“It’ll get them off,” Richie mutters, leaning back on his hands to watch him undress, fingers certain and steady as he unzips his fly and shimmies out of his jeans, fucking folding them before he drops them on the ground. Richie’s are rumpled in a heap where he kicked them and it is so stupidly endearing that Eddie’s concerned about, like, _ wrinkles _ when he’s about to orgasm.

He loses interest in that train of thought when Eddie lifts his hips to pull his boxers off, his dick flush against his stomach. Richie swallows, eyes it like it is, he doesn’t know, some sort of famous painting in an art museum, and then he’s launching forward again, kissing Eddie hard. He slips his hands under Eddie’s shirt, mapping out the definition of Eddie’s stomach, the muscles of his back, and he pulls Eddie closer, their erections hard and slick against each other.

The sensation sends a thrill up Richie’s spine, makes him heady, dizzy, sends his blood _ thrumming_. He knocks Eddie’s head up with his knuckles, his neck exposed, and sucks at the underside of his chin, rutting against Eddie’s pelvis. Eddie groans with each slide of their cocks. Richie can feel the tremble of his stomach, shirt lifted by Richie’s fist.

“Keep doing that,” Eddie breathes, arching into him, taking them both in his hand and guiding them. His fingers are jerky and messy, unable to keep up with the pace their hips have made, and Richie thinks they’re too far away from each other, could be closer, could be—

Eddie tightens around Richie, twists him with a flick of the wrist, and Richie is panting against his neck, thighs trembling, and a cramp forming in his calf, which he ignores.

“Eddie, I-I’m gonna, it's—I—_Eddie_,” he forces out, a whole bunch of _nothing. _His eyes squeeze shut, light building behind his lids at the same time as his orgasm, steadily and then all at once, bright and blinding.

“C’mon,” Eddie murmurs. “C’mon, let go—”

And Richie would, _ he would_, if he didn’t suddenly feel like he wasn’t in the hotel room anymore.

It’s not a pleasurable sort of light filling him now; it’s painful and glaring, hot like summer and dangerous like looking straight into the sun. His tongue feels heavy and large, filling his mouth and pressing uncomfortably against his teeth. There’s a rush of wind, like he’s in a vortex, swirling around him. He hears water, and footsteps, the telltale crash of rock. _ Screams_, maybe, and is that—

“Eddie,” he blurts. “Eddie, stop.”

He thinks he hears Bill. Ben, maybe, yelling Bev’s name. Her full name. _Beverly_! He’s floating, but he’s not, because he’s still right here with Eddie, who has ceased all movement. Who is touching his face.

It’s a split-screen. A split-feeling, really. One part is his reality, the other is his timeline fantasy reality or whatever he should call it, and he tries to hone in on that. He’s not ready. _ He is not ready_.

“Richie,” Eddie’s voice says. Drags him back. Lifts the haze of the light and the dim of the cistern. Richie blinks at him. “Hey, you’re here, are you okay?”

“I—yes,” Richie answers. It’s a half-truth. “I just. I’m sorry. I can’t. I don’t… It tried to send me back, I think, and I—” He scrambles off Eddie, the disappointment he feels from not getting off secondary to the fear gripping him. His glance darts from Eddie’s face to his stomach and down, to the pretty pink of his flushed penis. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to fix that for you?”

Eddie raises a brow. “No.”

“No? That’s probably uncomfortable,” Richie says. “It’s no big deal, I can—”

“I’m not a dick who can’t handle it if we stop and I don’t finish,” Eddie interrupts. “I will survive.” He bends down to grab his boxers, slipping them back on and crawling the length of the bed to lay beside Richie. “What happened?”

Richie shrugs. “One second I was just thinking about you and then the next I was very aware I was in the Deadlights. It’s like I was just about to come out of them, I don’t know. It was all very jarring.”

“That’s good, though, isn’t it? That’s what you want. To go back.”

“Yeah,” says Richie. _ Also no, _ he could say, but he doesn’t. “But not like that. You were literally just—and then I’d have to go back, and you’d—I need to go back when I’m clear of mind and am able to work fast enough. I can’t do that after that. I get limp. I get cuddly. I won’t be able to move me, let alone _ you_, out of the way of anything.”

And then there’s the other fear, the one that laid dormant until he was almost faced with the frightening reality of reliving Pennywise’s defeat: _ What if I do save you and one of these four worlds is the one where you don’t love me back? _Stan can say all he wants about how easy it is and how much he deserves it and how he will get it, but what if that isn’t true? What if Richie saves him, Eddie slaps him on the back, and they go their separate ways again? What if Eddie goes back to his _ wife_?

_ Not possible_, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Stan whispers in his ear. Then Eddie, this one right next to him: _ You’re it for me. _ Richie’s voice, loud and clear, comes back with a vengeance, kicking them both out of his head. _ What if I’m not? _

“Yeah, I know,” Eddie murmurs. “You were dead weight last time. Why didn’t you experience this then?”

“I dunno, maybe because I wasn’t aware I was in the Deadlights before,” Richie suggests. “Who knows how this stupid shit works? Stan _ left _ me.”

“Okay.” Eddie steeples his hands together, frowns. “Number one: put some fucking pants on, please, if I can’t touch it I don’t want to see it. Number two: you’re _ sure _ you don’t want me to run you over?”

“_Yes_, Eddie, I don’t want you to _ run me over_, Jesus.” Richie drops his arm over the side of his mattress and gropes for his pants. “I don’t understand why you’re so adamant about it, but I’d just really like to maybe not get hit by a car today.”

Eddie snorts. “It’s just a suggestion, idiot.”

“A suggestion is something you mention once,” Richie shoots back. “This is more like a burning desire. You wanna play Doctor with me so bad you’ll injure me yourself?”

Eddie hits him in the face with a pillow.

* * *

“What if I drown you?”

“What the fuck.”

“I’ll fill up the sink real quick, right, and then I’ll hold your head underwater until you can’t breathe. Just think about the Deadlights the whole time."

“_No_.”

* * *

“I guess my head hurt,” Richie says, frowning. “I don’t really remember much, just that I—”

“Called _ Pennywise _ a _ sloppy bitch_,” Eddie tallies off, “asked It to play Truth or Dare, and said _ yippee-ki-yay motherfucker_. God, you’re so chaotic.”

“That’s me, a chaotic gay. That’s what the kids are saying these days, right?”

“I don’t know. I’m forty. I’m, like, ancient to them.”

Richie nods his head in agreement. “Pretty old. Real gross.”

“Yup, sure,” Eddie says. “Super gross.” He leans forward and knocks a knuckle against Richie’s forehead. “Want me to flash a light in your eyes and give you a headache?”

His hand is slapped out of Richie’s face, now frowning. “I already have a headache, Spaghetti.”

“One down, one to go,” Eddie says cheerfully.

“Don’t you fucking _ dare_.”

* * *

“I told you _ not to_,” Richie snaps, blinking away the echo of the light, a bright circle behind his eyelids and where Eddie’s face is supposed to be when he looks at him.

“I thought it would work!”

“Why would you think it would work?”

“Replication?” Eddie suggests.

“When has replication solved anything?” Richie asks. “It’s called _ Attack of the Clones_, not, like, _ Peaceful Coexisting with the Clones_.”

“What the fuck, Richie, _ Star Wars: Episode II_?”

“I said what I said.”

“Yeah, okay, and I said what _ I _ said, which has nothing to do with clones, but replication of science experiments so you can come to an accurate hypothesis.”

“I am not a science experiment.” 

Eddie peers up at him with those dumb brown doe eyes of his. “Are you _sure_?”

* * *

“Are you ignoring me?”

“No.”

“You’re on your phone,” Richie points out, “and you’re not paying attention to me.”

“I’m hungry,” says Eddie. “Do you like Thai?”

Richie flops on his stomach next to him, leans his head against his shoulder, and watches him scroll through Seamless. “Who doesn’t?”

“Ben,” Eddie says.

“Wacko,” Richie mutters. “What are you ordering?”

“Dunno. You got any fatal food allergies?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Damn.”

* * *

“Wait,” Richie says, their order already processed and paid for, expected to arrive within the hour, “were you trying to kill me again?”

“Maybe,” Eddie says. He’s flipping through the channels on the television, never once settling on one program. He hums with interest when he sees something he likes, then changes it.

“I don’t want to _die_, Eds,” Richie tells him. "Can't there be a way to send me back without killing me? And can you _ please _ pick something to watch? This is insane.”

Eddie toggles between shows again, almost deliberately, and replies, “Maybe part of you has to die to get out of here, Rich.”

“Maybe part of you just wants to murder me,” Richie retorts.

“No maybe about it,” Eddie says. “I’ve been threatening to kill you since we were ten.”

“That was you being cute and flirting with me!”

“Yeah, that was not me flirting,” Eddie says. “I’ve really been trying to kill you since we were ten. You’re just obtuse.” 

He puts on a rerun marathon of _ Keeping Up with the Kardashians_.

* * *

They’re in the middle of watching the Kardashians go on vacation in the Dominican Republic, stuffing their faces with vegetable dumplings and noodles, when Richie slurps a piece of chicken off his fork and asks, “What do you plan to do in L.A.?”

Eddie points his fork at him, prongs covered in bits of rice. “Chew first, talk after,” he advises. “We are sophisticated people.”

“We’re eating takeout on a hotel bed at the Marriott in the middle of Times Square,” Richie points out. “This is, like, the least sophisticated we’ve ever been.”

“I put down towels so we wouldn’t stain the sheets,” Eddie says, “since _ someone _ fucked up the comforter.”

“How was I supposed to know that would happen?”

“Rule seven: Expect the unexpected,” Eddie replies serenely. He shoves a heaping forkful of fried rice in his mouth, chewing as Richie stares at him.

Richie is _ balancing _ his food on his fucking _ knees_. “What are the first six rules there, Eddie baby?”

“One: Don’t call me dumb names. Two: Wipe down all public surfaces; you don’t know what kind of germs they carry, specifically on airplanes and in hotel bathrooms. They’re half-assed with the cleaning, I'm certain of it. Three: Always carry a travel first aid kit. Four: Have at least a hundred dollars cash on you at all times. Small bills, obviously. Five—”

“I regret asking,” Richie bemoans. He licks at his upper lip, stinging from the spice of his dish. His mouth feels like it’s swollen from all that heat. “The first rule is really about people calling you names? Who does that besides me?”

“No one,” says Eddie. “It’s just a rule for you.”

“Have you had it all these years?"

“No, I replaced the actual rule with that one.” Eddie waves his fork, brandishing it like he’s about to shove it through Richie’s neck. “No baby, no Eds, no Spaghetti. Eddie’s already a nickname. Use it.”

Richie huffs a sigh. “It’s such a boring nickname.”

“It’s literally my name.”

“And your name is boring.”

“What do you make of Richie then?”

“Also boring,” Richie says. “That’s why you all call me Trashmouth.”

“We call you that because you won’t shut up,” Eddie retorts. “No one calls you that because it’s endearing. It’s because you talk so much fucking shit. What’d you ask me before?”

Richie screws up his face, wrinkles his nose. “I asked what you were going to do when you got to California, but I kind of don’t want to know anymore.”

Eddie chews in consideration, knowing full well Richie is full of shit. “I don’t know yet,” he says. “I was hoping I could crash with you for a bit—”

“Obviously,” Richie interrupts. “Move in. Make a mess of my place. Make it yours. I don’t care.”

“Right, and I’ll call my job and see if I can get transferred, and then—”

“Is that what you want?” Richie asks. “To go back to the same shit?”

“What else would I do?”

“I’unno,” Richie says. “Something you like, maybe. Something you’re interested in. I always thought you’d become a doctor or some shit. You were always patching us up. You knew so much. You ever learn how to amputate a waist?”

“It’s called a hemicorporectomy,” Eddie says.

“Gesundheit,” Richie replies.

“It’s a very radical procedure,” he continues on, as if Richie never spoke. “Gets rid of everything below the waist. I did not learn how to do it. I was never in medical school. I most certainly can’t start that now, either, so I’ll just—I’ll assess the risks for dumbass ex-frat bros and let them pay me a pretty check.” He lifts his shoulders up to his ears in a casual shrug. “Maybe I’ll just become your trophy boyfriend. I don’t know. I hadn’t gotten that far. Didn’t really think I’d make it out of that sewer, which I know you don’t want to hear.”

Richie winces and shovels food into his mouth to hide the fact that his hands are shaking. He chews for longer than he should, looking at Eddie—scar on his cheek, slightly crooked nose, brown eyes that see more than he’d like—and when he swallows, asks, “You really thought you’d die there?”

Kim is crying about losing her diamond earring in the sea. Kourtney yells back at her, _ Kim, there’s people that are dying_.

Eddie’s gaze flits from the television screen to Richie and back. He seems particularly interested in their entitlement. “Literally all I remembered was how scared I’d been back then,” he tells him.

“Dude,” Richie says, blinking in bewilderment, “you were the bravest out of all of us, hands down.”

“But Bill—“ And they’re both remembering him, pressing the tip of Mike’s gun to Georgie’s head, saying, _ You’re not Georgie_, and the split second moment of hesitation, where they were terrified he’d actually killed his brother. Eddie shakes himself out, changes course. “_You _hit It with a baseball bat,” he says.

“Yeah, and? Everyone likes to remind me of that, as if I wasn’t scared shitless when I did it,” Richie retorts. “You climbed down that hatch with only_ one arm_! It fucking _ threw up _ on you and you dropkicked It in the _ face_. That was so metal, dude, I was, like, half in love with you right then.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “You’ve always been half in love with me, asshole.”

Richie stretches out his leg and shoves his toe into Eddie’s chest. “Shut up,” he says, because it’s true and it’s pretty gross of him. “If you were so scared, why’d you come back? Stan didn’t.”

“You know what they say. Face your fears head on or whatever,” Eddie says, flicking Richie’s foot as it moves up, closer to his face. “And I’ve been half in love with you, too, my whole life, so when I remembered you, I’d… I’d hoped you’d be there, too.”

Richie’s ears burn. They’re on fire. His whole body is on fire. “What if I didn’t go?” he blurts out. “What if I actually did ditch you guys when I tried to?”

“Did Stan mention anything to you?"

“Just that there’s a timeline where I’m dead because his spider head ate my fucking face,” Richie grumbles. What a shitty way to go. Devoured by a supernatural figment of his best friend merged with said best friend’s fear. Hideous. Disgusting. Richie wants to hit that thing so hard with a fly swatter it explodes.

_ There’s a chance for that_, he thinks, one of the only times he considers falling out of the Deadlights a positive thing.

Eddie snorts.

“Shush,” Richie orders. “Stan didn’t tell me much, but he never said there was a world where I didn’t go. There’s only worlds where he doesn’t, and he made us make that stupid oath, so what the fuck, dude, you know? Can’t make me promise to do something you _ don’t also do._”

He directs the last bit of the sentence up, like he can summon Stan back to him, and feels disappointed when he doesn’t just appear like he did before. What’s the point of having a ghost friend when they can’t just come when they’re summoned?

(He doesn’t want to focus on the fact that Stan may _ never _ come back, so he doesn’t.)

“So you thought you’d die there,” Richie says, and the words taste awful on his tongue, “but you didn’t. You really have no game plan? You’re just going to continue on, same but different? You don’t think this is some kind of sign you should, I don’t know, take control of your life again?”

Eddie twists his fork in Richie’s noodles, splatters peanut oil on his wrist, and lifts. He doesn’t eat the food, just drops it back down, and does it again. “I am taking control of my life,” he says. “Just because you want to date some hotshot doctor doesn’t mean I should do that.”

“You’d be so good at it.”

“I’d never see you,” Eddie tells him. “There’s medical school and then residency and then all the other hiccups along the way. It’s long hours and no breaks and—you really want to work around that? After everything we’ve been through, you want to be separated _ again_?”

“We wouldn’t forget each other this time,” Richie replies. “I want you to be happy. I can tell you haven’t been.”

Eddie shrugs, like this is not news to him and not that big of a deal, which would make Richie remarkably sad if he didn't already feel the same way. “I’m happy to be here with you.”

“Are you?”

“Do you have to question everything I say?” Eddie huffs. “Yes, Richie. I wouldn’t say that if it was a lie. I wouldn’t leave my wife and skip town if I wasn’t sure this is what I wanted. You know sometimes people do get what they want, right? You don’t have to constantly make sure it’s real.”

Richie swallows and shoves his glasses up into his hair so he doesn’t have to look at Eddie directly. Being able to see his face and his expressions… it’s a little hard for him now, since this is a conversation he’s not sure he’ll have in his own future (four four four _ four_). “Yeah, maybe, but _ I _ do,” he admits, and he feels itchy just saying it.

“Why?” Eddie asks. “You know what to do.”

“Knowing and doing are two different things,” Richie says. His heart feels as if it’s being squeezed to a pulp, bloody and mangled. He wishes Stan were back here, if only to give him the probability of Richie actually doing what needs to be done. He feels like he can hear him anyway, feels like Stan’s whispering in his ear _ twenty-eighty._ Twenty percent chance he’ll nut up and change the timeline. Eighty percent he fails. “If I don’t manage it, I guess it’s nice to know what could have been. That you want to be here. That all of it isn’t just a figment of my imagination, that you and me, we’re—” He cuts himself off before he says something sappy like _ soulmates_, like he’s a prepubescent girl who has only ever seen Disney movies with pretty, packaged endings. “It’d be nice to hold on to that.”

“You stupid idiot,” Eddie says immediately. “You absolute moron. That’s what you are. You’re so dumb.”

“I mean, yes, I am, but—_what_?”

“You always fucking second-guess yourself,” Eddie all but spits at him. “That’s your fatal flaw, you know that? Always wondering if we liked you, if you were funny, if I actually wanted to spend time with you, if we were really your friends—the list goes on! Dude, you _ are _ funny, and we _ do _ like you, and obviously I _ want _ to spend time with you. Of course you’ll be able to do it. You’re _ Richie_, you get shit done, and you are always there for me. What are you gonna do, just _ not _ be yourself?”

Richie presses his fist to his cheek. “I really don’t like when you yell at me.”

“I’m always yelling at you,” Eddie retorts, “and I’m not yelling right now, thanks.”

“You’re being all… all stern and shit,” Richie replies. “It’s unsettling. I’m unsettled.”

Eddie places his half-eaten fried rice on the night table and pulls himself over to Richie. He wraps his arms around his waist and buries his head into his back. “Listen,” he says, voice muffled, “there is literally _ nothing _ you can’t do. Once you put your mind to it, you don’t take no for an answer. I used to think that was annoying, but in this scenario, I think it fits. You’re going to do what you have to do because that’s what you always do and then you’re gonna be happy, you piece of shit. I believe in you, we _ all _ believe in you—it’s high time you started doing the same.” He lifts his head and kisses the back of Richie’s neck. “I love you,” he adds simply. “Try to keep that in mind, yeah?”

“But you called me a stupid idiot, and a moron, and a piece of shit,” Richie retorts.

“I called you an absolute moron actually,” Eddie says, “but that doesn’t make it any less true. I love you and I believe in you.” He hooks his chin over Richie’s shoulder, eyes the television, and then asks, “Can you feed me a dumpling?”

“Vegetable or pork?”

“Surprise me.”

Richie reaches out blindly for the containers, stabs his fork through one, and lifts it to Eddie’s mouth. Eddie sighs in contentment, chewing, and moves the food into one cheek like a hamster to comment on the show in front of them.

Richie tries to watch, he really does, but he’s not particularly invested in what’s going on as much as he is in Eddie’s biting commentary. He snorts, looks up, and thinks, _ Please_.

He feeds Eddie again, then eats the rest of the dumpling from the fork. Continues looking up, and doesn’t know why he’s doing that, looking into the heavens and begging. He’s not a religious man by any means, staunchly in the category of _ If God was real, this shit wouldn’t have happened to me_, but he finds himself pleading for the second time that day.

_ Dear Stan_, he thinks, because that little shit is his guardian angel, that asshole is the one trying to help him, _ it’s me, Richie. For fuck’s sake, please don’t let me lose this. _

“Food,” Eddie demands. He’s shifted now, his knees pressed against Richie’s sides, all but clinging to him. “Richie. Dumpling me.”

“Alright, princess,” Richie replies, “calm down.”

“Not a princess,” Eddie says snootily, slipping his hand under the hem of Richie’s shirt and pinching his stomach. “If anything, I am a handsome Disney prince, thank you very much.”

“Which one?” Richie asks.

Eddie contemplates this and then says definitively, “Prince Eric.”

“Fuck no,” Richie says. “You’re Phillip.”

“From _ Sleeping Beauty_? Fuck off. No, I’m not, what even—why would you say that?”

“He’s, like, the twinkiest one,” Richie says. “He reminds me of you.”

“Yeah, well,” Eddie says, energy building up so tangibly Richie can feel it buzzing at his back, “you remind me of those gross hyenas in _ The Lion King_, you know that mangy one, with its tongue out, it can never get it back into its mouth, how do you feel about tha—”

Richie looks up again, Eddie’s longwinded insult—his _flirting_—a mere buzz in his ears, and tries to imagine someone up there fucking listening to him for a change.

_ Please_, he begs again, _ I won’t survive it if I lose him. _

“I love how you think I’m the most disgusting thing on this planet, but you still practically begged to fuck me before,” Richie teases. It kind of falls flat—the pressures of reality will do that to you from time to time—but regardless of the tone it is still something that’ll set Eddie off.

“I did _ no such_—there was _no—_”

“For someone as obsessed with being clean as you, you sure do love dirty things, Eds,” he continues, talking over him, feeling his heart race, somersault, free-fall into oblivion. _ Please please please please _ ** _please_ ** _ I love this I love him you don’t get to hurt me again. _

“I cannot fucking stand you,” Eddie snaps. “I can’t wait for you to wake up and _ leave_.”

“Mhm, sure,” says Richie, “but you forget you’ll just have another version of me to spend the rest of your life with and quite unfortunately for you we Richies do not change much.”

Eddie presses his nose to his neck, says, “I’m going to kill you.”

“Do your worst,” Richie says, “but just remember—you don’t wanna live without me, which is understandable, have you _ seen_—_ow_, what the fuck, did you _ bite _ me?”

“Yep. And I’ll do it again if you don’t shut up.”

“Oooh, I’m so scared of Eddie Spaghetti, Vampire Wannabe,” Richie intones. “You gonna suck my blood or something? You really think biting me is gonna get me to stop talking?”

“Something like that,” Eddie mumbles, and bites him again.

* * *

(Richie ends up with a brilliant purple lovebite the size of a golfball right above his collarbone.)

* * *

That night, the series of dreams Richie remembers are nothing short of horrific. He dies in each one of them, a victim to Eddie’s jokingly suggested methods of waking him up.

The car runs him over and ruptures his spleen, breaks all of his ribs, leaves him gasping in the street. Eddie drives away, seemingly uninterested in the mess he’s left behind. _Abandons_ him.

He convulses in the sink, sees the bright light he’s been running from, and this time chases after it. He ends up free falling forever, not quite making it to where he needs to be, feeling like Alice tumbling through to Wonderland, but there’s no end in sight.

Eddie hits him in the back of the head so hard he passes out and when he wakes, the thirteen year old version of Eddie is staring at him, tar running down his chin, smiling like he’s happy to see him.

“_Finally_,” the thing croaks, and it’s not Eddie’s voice, it’s a combination of every awful thing Richie has ever heard in his life. Pennywise, Bowers’ maniacal laugh, a werewolf’s howl, creepy children laughing in unison coming from a sink drain. “I missed you.”

“You missed me?” Richie asks—no, Richie _ tries _ to ask. He can’t move his mouth. It’s like his lips have been superglued together, and that makes sense because no one fucking likes it when he talks. Trashmouth is annoying, which makes Richie annoying. _ Beep beep_, also known as _ shut the fuck up_.

He lifts his hand to his mouth, feels the stitches sewn through his skin, and shudders. His tongue is dry, limp with lack of use, but Richie tries to force it through, to dislodge the thread.

He can’t.

He can’t find where they start, can’t use his hands to rip them out, can’t even _ control _ his hands; they're all slippery. They're unable to grip anything, sliding off the smoothness of his cheeks, no matter how hard he tries.

Neibolt-Eddie watches him and smiles, teeth stained black—and Eddie would never let that happen, Eddie would _ die _ before that happened. “This is the only way we can be together, Richie,” he says, eyes widening. “Dirty and quiet. That’s the only way. We don’t get any second chances. Don’t touch them!”

Richie makes a startled noise at the back of his throat. _ Dirty and quiet_? Dirty and quiet, what does that—

He turns his head when Eddie coughs up more tar (_or is that blood?_), the color of his shirt unrecognizable—or it should be, but Richie knows this one. It should be yellow, with a tiny, angry car on it. Richie had thought Eddie’d look so good in yellow, like the sun, like spring, like hope for something else, something more, when he’d seen him in it the first time.

He catches his reflection in the dirty mirror above the fireplace: a perfect replica of teenage Richie Tozier, huge eyes behind large coke-bottle glasses, pointed nose, the right height, weight, width. There are differences, though: his mouth is sewn up, his skin is too pale, too perfect—he's a _ doll_, something that can be played with, that can be told what to do and when to do it, with no mind of its own. A victim to whoever picks it up. 

It’s what he saw in Neibolt that first time, laid in a coffin, notices stuck to him: _ Missing, In Memoriam_. Forgotten.

Richie yelps, or tries to, and pulls at his mouth. Pulls and pulls and pulls, but the stitches won’t budge, and his skin won’t mar, no matter how many times he tries to pinch it. He has no fingernails. He’s nothing. He is a shell. He’s—

“Stop,” Eddie whines. “Don’t you want to be together? This is how we do it! Stop stop _ stop_, Richie!” Every time he talks that gross, dark fluid leaves his mouth. 

He shakes his head over and over again, trying to make himself dizzy, trying to _ feel _ something, and that makes Eddie mad. 

“Stop!” he shouts, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “Stop! I’m so lonely. I don’t want to be by myself again. He said you could stay if you behaved. Please behave, Richie, please. Please, please, _ please_, Richie, stop, you’re—no! Don’t leave me again! _ Don’t leave me here_! I don’t want to be in Neibolt _ alone_!”

* * *

Richie wakes with a shuddering gasp, grabbing at his face, no more than two hours after he’d fallen asleep. His left side is cold, Eddie—his Eddie, _ real _ Eddie—having rolled over at some point, curled into a ball underneath the sheets. He looks at him, measures the rise and fall of his chest, hovers a hand over his back. Decides not to touch him, that’s crazy, and comforts himself in the fact that Eddie feels warm. Warm means alive, and not covered in shit back in Neibolt.

With a groan and a crack of his back, Richie stands and makes his way to the bathroom.

There are wet towels on the floor, which he’d forgotten about, meant to soak the disgusting remains of Pennywise that stain the tiles. His socks dampen as he steps on them, uncaring, and his hand throbs where it broke right through the back of the clown’s throat like he was nothing more than a kid’s papier-mâché art project.

He doesn’t remember it ever being that easy, getting rid of It, but in that moment, he wasn’t afraid. He was _ mad_, and maybe that’s what got rid of him for the time being. That, and Richie knowing that even if the clown was gone here, he was still dangling in the Deadlights. Still being tortured. It didn’t matter.

Richie is wary to look at his reflection this time (_what if he’s a doll still?_) and blinks open one eye ever so slowly, then the other. What stares back at him is himself, old and tired and a little bit defeated with a red, swollen bottom lip. He must’ve bitten down so hard he’d broken skin, probably reopened that wound Eddie’d given him days ago. It was nicer, then, when it was Eddie’s teeth doing the biting.

He wipes at it with his fingers, washes his hands, splashes water on his face. He dabs at his mouth with balled up tissue, goes back into the main room, and sits, pretzel-style, at the foot of the bed, one eye on Eddie, the other on his phone.

Bev has sent him a picture of Ben sleeping on the couch, dog seated on his chest like it’s tinier than it is, so Richie sends back one of Eddie, tiny and soft, on the hotel bed. She won’t get it until she wakes up at a more reasonable hour than this because she’s one of the lucky few that get to sleep, that get to live their lives, that don’t have to worry.

Richie is not.

He watches Eddie, thinks, _ He’d really hate to know I’ve still got my wet socks on_, and pulls those off, dropping them to the floor.

And then he brings his attention back to his phone—because he won’t go back to bed, not if there’s a chance he’ll see Eddie the way he’s not supposed to be, because he can’t wake himself up, because he won’t do it the only way it almost happened before, he will _ not_—and opens up Google Maps. 

It says it will take a day and fifteen to sixteen hours to get to L.A., which doesn’t seem like it would be right, but what does Richie know? He’s only ever flown.

* * *

He is on coffee number three when Eddie rouses, turning more deliberately than he had before. He sighs a little, smacks his lips, and stretches, almost hitting Richie in the face. His voice is thick with sleep, a little deeper than usual, grainier, when he asks, “Whaddya doin’?”

Richie checks the time (5:45 AM), says, “You’re up early.”

“M’cold,” Eddie says around a yawn he tries to stifle in his fist.

“Impossible,” Richie replies immediately. “You’re a blanket hog.”

Eddie’s dimples show big and pink when he grins at him, snuggling deeper beneath the covers. He’s got them all wrapped around him like a big, fluffy cocoon, only the leg that was _ thisclose _ to spilling Richie’s coffee all over his lap sticking out. Richie's heart flutters just a bit—okay, more than a bit, but he’s trying to not be so fucking soft about this—at the picture Eddie makes and he’s leaning forward to tuck him back in.

“Better?” he asks.

Eddie shakes his head _ no_. “You’re warmest. Come cuddle.”

“You act like a five-year-old when you’re half-asleep,” Richie tells him. He moves anyway, back against the headboard, and props Eddie’s head in his lap. Eddie makes a happy sort of noise in the back of his throat, wraps his arms around his waist, presses his mouth to Richie’s hipbone. “I can’t believe you’ve literally never shared a bed or cuddled with anyone else.”

“No point in cuddling someone who was not you,” Eddie says against his skin. “Tell me what you’re doing. Why aren’t you sleepin’?”

“Couldn’t,” Richie replies easily, glossing over the real issue, “so I decided to look into routes to L.A.”

Eddie turns his head so he can look up at him. “What’d you decide on?”

“Well, my phone says it’s going to take a day and half-ish—”

“Yeah, in a perfect world,” Eddie interrupts. “I’m not driving nonstop; I hope you know that.”

“I’m not either, so we’re on the same page,” Richie says. “Would you rather drive through Missouri or Iowa?”

“Is there much of a difference?”

“No,” answers Richie, “apparently like an hour.”

“Doesn’t matter to me then,” Eddie says. “Do you have particular feelings?”

“No.” _ But it doesn’t matter what I want_, he thinks to add. He doesn’t.

“Okay, whatever then. We can just put your address in the GPS and go from there. We don’t have to map the whole thing out.”

Richie fakes a gasp. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, Eduardo? You want to go into this without a _ plan_?”

“I don’t like your tone,” Eddie tells him. “We don’t need a plan for everything, you know. I most certainly didn’t have one when I decided to run off with you.”

“Mhm, you didn’t,” Richie murmurs, prodding at Eddie’s bottom lip with a knuckle. Eddie frowns, untangles his hand from the blankets, and slides their palms together until he can fit his fingers in the spaces between Richie’s. “The suitcases say something else entirely.”

“Don’t listen to them,” Eddie says, “they’re a bunch of liars.”

Richie snorts and ducks his head, pressing his mouth to Eddie’s, which responds in kind, lazy and warm. “They had to learn from someone, Eddiekins.”

“Wasn’t me.” Eddie blinks at him, eyes wide and innocent-looking. With his cheeks flushed like they are, he looks like a cherub. “I’ve never, ever told a lie.”

“Never, ever,” Richie agrees, thinking back to all the times Eddie’d stretched the truth. Throughout their teenage years, he’d lied through his teeth more than the rest of them, mainly to his mother, but more importantly to all of Derry, hiding his sexuality, which, for some reason, everyone thought they had a right to judge. He thinks back to how Eddie used to look, climbing in through his window at midnight, hair wild and curly, eyes bright, and says to him now, “You’re cute.”

Eddie nods. “I am.”

“Thought you didn’t like being called things that weren’t your name.”

“It’s the truth, though,” he says. “So are you. Cute, I mean.”

It’s dumb for Richie to blush, but he does, and he squeezes Eddie’s hand in his, feels the weight of his heart against his chest, beating the ever-present _ please, please, please_.

There’s a Smiths song for this. _ Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want. _ He's never related to it before, but now he can feel it in his teeth, the ache. The desire. The—it’s desperation, there is no other way to slice it. He can feel it start to bloom, as well, the belief—in what Stan said, in Eddie’s words. In Losers, and love, and magic.

_ You have to believe in yourself. _

_ I love you and I believe in you. _

For the first time in a long time, Richie believes in himself, too.

* * *

“I swear to fucking God, Richie, if you put on one more shitty podcast, I will drive this car right off the fucking bridge.”

“Oh, I love it when you talk dirty to me,” Richie coos, thumbing through his Spotify. He debates putting on the Jason Derulo classic (_been around the world, don't speak the language_), but thinks otherwise when he sees the way Eddie is clenching his jaw, staring at the long line of traffic ahead of them. It’s always rough getting out of New York; it’s like no one knows how to drive here. “I was actually going to play One Direction’s greatest hits.”

The cars inch ahead. Eddie drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “What do you consider their greatest hits?” he asks, like he is someone who actively listens to them.

“Uh, all of them,” Richie answers. “The second album for sure.” 

“You listened to One Direction? A boyband?”

“I wouldn’t say I listened to them,” Richie replies. “I am not a fan or anything, but I most certainly do not live under a rock. I know who they are.”

Eddie snorts. “Sure," he says, "I always knew you liking The Cure was just a fucking cover.”

“It was _ not_,” Richie says. “I like The Cure!”

“Name a song that’s not _ Pictures of You _ or _ Friday I’m In Love_,” Eddie challenges, sparing a second to look away from the road. His grin widens into something sharp when Richie flounders (and it’s only because he’s not good under pressure, _ okay_). “Thought so.”

“That’s not fair,” Richie whines. “I just. I blanked, okay? I like The Cure. I listen to The Cure. I know more songs by The Cure than those.”

“Say The Cure again and I’ll really believe you’re a fan.” Eddie laughs. “Just admit you like boybands. What’s the big deal?”

“No one was this mean to Ben when he had a hard-on for New Kids On The Block.” Richie puts on some randomly curated playlist of songs from the early nineties and drops his phone in the cupholder.

They’ve made it closer to the George Washington Bridge in the length of their conversation; Richie can see it from here, and while Eddie is buzzing with excitement, Richie can’t find it in himself to feel the same. He needs to wake up, not get out of New York. 

“Ben is cooler than you,” Eddie says simply. “He never acted like boybands were beneath him.” 

“I never acted like—what, you’re telling me you liked New Kids too? I bet you listened to those other ones, too—*NSYNC, Backstreet Boys.” 

“98 Degrees,” Eddie adds. “Yeah, I did. I’m not ashamed. Only you thought music taste defined you because you’re an idiot.” 

Richie sniffs. “I was already getting beat up for fucking existing. I wasn’t going to give Bowers another reason to kill me.”

“He wouldn’t kill you over your _ taste in music_—“

“You saw what he did to Ben when he stole his Walkman!” Richie exclaims. “He couldn’t see out of his right eye for weeks.”

Eddie flicks his blinker on and races between cars to change lanes. “He hit him in the face because he wouldn’t let him copy off his test and he had to repeat the eighth grade.” 

“_No_,” Richie argues. “I mean, yes, he did that, but that was another time.” He lowers his window down, the sun’s rays turning the inside of the car into a sauna. “He was like”—and here he tries to copy Bowers’ voice but finds that he is too nauseous to do so, aware that he’s dead, that he’s killed him—“_what are you listening to, fat boy_? And when he found out, he was all _ get out of here with that fairy music, what, are you queer, Hanscom_, and he went to town on his face. Don’t tell me that’s not having your music taste define you.” 

Eddie picks at his tiny scar, says, “Change this song,” and then is silent for a bit longer. 

Richie debates snapping at him for touching his face, but ultimately decides against it. Instead he watches Eddie, who has gone blurry at the edges, and blinks, once, twice, three times. Jesus Christ, it’s so fucking hot. What is it, like, a hundred degrees outside? He fans his face and grabs Eddie’s travel water bottle, twisting the cap off and chugging. 

“Did you just drink my water?” 

Richie says, “Yep, got all my backwash in there, too.” 

“Gross.” But Eddie doesn’t really mean it. He physically can’t, not with all the shit they’ve done together in the past week, and especially not when he’d almost convinced Richie to let him top him. “It only defines you,” he adds, “if you believe it does. You are more than the songs you listen to. I hope you know that now at your age or else I’m kicking you out of the car. You can get to L.A. by yourself.”

Richie’s chest tightens. His stomach roils like he’s consumed his weight in cheese, but he’s only eaten half a bagel, so that can’t be right. His hands start to tremble, and his mind races a mile a minute, but he can’t focus on one singular thought. All he hears is _ If you believe it does _like a roaring in his ears. Louder, then quieter, a constant rotation, like a vinyl that skips every thirty seconds. 

He blinks, and his eyes are dry, and he croaks, “What?” _ If you believe it does. _

Eddie glances over at him, slowed to a stop behind a Hyundai Sonata. “You okay? You don’t look so good. Should I pull over when we’re off the bridge?” _ If you believe it does. _

Richie takes his glasses off, presses his fingers into his eyes. He can’t fucking see. “M’fine,” he lies. “Just. I’m kind of nauseous, but it’ll pass. Don’t worry. It’s—it’s not anything to worry about. It happens.” _ If you believe it does. _

“Like, often?” Eddie asks. “You should go to a doctor.” _ If you believe it does. _

“If only you were one, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie tries, but even he winces when the words come out. They are lackluster at best and an awful joke at worst. He doesn’t even sound a fraction of the amount of wistful he’d been aiming for. “What’d you say before?” _ If you believe it does. _

“I asked if I should pull over.” _ If you believe it does. _

“No, no.” God, it’s so hard to talk. The familiar burn of vomit rises steadily up his throat, but he doesn’t have to throw up. He doesn’t. It’s an odd sensation, feeling it but knowing nothing will come out. “Before that,” he clarifies. “You said—“ _ If you believe it does. _

“Oh,” Eddie cuts in, “I was saying I guess your music taste can define you and it really shouldn’t because who the fuck cares, right? Unless you like disco, then fuck you. Disco is very controversial. You don’t like disco, do you?” _ If you believe it does. _

That’s not what he said, but Richie answers him anyway. “Uh, can’t say I do. I did watch that movie with John Travolta, though, does that count?” _ If you believe it does. _

“Everyone watched that movie, it was John Travolta. You get a free pass for that.” _ If you believe it does. _

“Thank god,” Richie says. “I’d hate for you to think I’m into disco.” To be a complete asshole, he exits out of the playlist and puts on _ Stayin’ Alive. If you believe it does. _

Eddie sighs. “I changed my mind,” he says. “I wish you’d gotten beaten up more in high school.” _ If you believe it does. _

“That’s probably the meanest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Richie retorts. He continues to fan his face, hot as shit, and leans forward to redirect the air conditioning vents so almost all of them are blowing on him. _ If you believe it does. _

“That can’t be right,” Eddie comments. _ If you believe it does. _

“It is, actually,” Richie says. He’s about ten seconds away from pulling his top layer off—why the fuck does he wear shit like this in the summer? “I know. I remember all the insults.” _ If you believe it does. _

Eddie blows out an irritated breath, staring ahead at the congestion, leans back, tries to roll the tension from his shoulders. “Well, if you say so,” he says, and Richie dry heaves, unbuckling his seatbelt to rest his forehead on his knees. “_Dude_.” _ If you believe it does. _

“I know, sorry, whatever, safety issues, I get it,” Richie blabbers. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying, his head is _ pounding_. _ If you believe it does. _

“Roll your window up,” Eddie tells him. “I’ll crank the AC and then we’re stopping so you can get yourself together. Why didn’t you tell me you get carsick?” _ If you believe it does. _

Richie throws his hands up. “Because I _ don’t_,” he says. “This has never happened before.” ** _If you believe it does. _ **

He lifts his head and finds Eddie staring right at him. There are no cars ahead of them, but he’s not moving, and a cacophony of horns play an irritated song behind them. Eddie doesn’t even think of pressing down on the gas, just looks at Richie, and Richie looks back. 

Richie asks, “Do you hear that?” 

“No.”

“Do you feel that?”

“No.” 

But there is something there: A warm dampness, the dripping of water somewhere behind him, and swoop of his stomach that makes him think he’s going to fall. He hears a clamoring to his right, the startled shout of his name to his left. 

Richie reaches his hand out. Eddie takes it. 

“Where are we?” 

“I’m almost over the bridge,” Eddie says. “Is this—are you doing it?”

“No,” says Richie. “Keep driving. They’re pissed behind you.”

“Richie…”

“_Go_,” he insists. “Cross the bridge. Get out of the city like you want to. I don’t think I’m coming with you.” 

Eddie listens, presses down on the gas, and guides the car to the end of the bridge with one hand, the other gripping Richie’s. “You still there?”

“Yeah,” Richie says, small and thin. “Barely.” 

Eddie brushes his thumb over Richie’s knuckle. It sends a shiver down Richie’s spine, one that he clings to. “Remember what Stan said,” Eddie tells him. “You know what to do.” 

“I know.” Richie feels so terribly young, feels like he’s headed back to Neibolt all over again for the first time. “I’m scared,” he blurts. 

_ Please please please please. _

“So was I,” Eddie says, “but somebody told me I was braver than I thought I was. He was pretty smart.” 

“Yeah?” Richie ask, choking on a laugh. “Where’s the guy now? I could use him.”

“He’s you, Rich, you know that.” Eddie looks at him, and Richie greedily takes him in, even as the car and New York City start to fade out, darkening at the edges of his vision. He thinks, _ I love him I love him I love him that has to be enough_. “I believe in you. Know that wherever you are, I always believe in you.” 

Richie nods, wishes he could dig his nails into Eddie’s hand and stay right here. “I love you,” he tells him. He doesn’t remember if he’s said that in all seriousness before and it is important Eddie knows.

“I love you too,” Eddie says. His cheeks, pink in the summer sunlight, are the last thing Richie sees, and then there is a tight whoosh of air by his ear, and he is falling.

It feels like he is falling forever, like there is nothing but falling, no end no end _ no end_, not until he reaches the ground, dead on impact, a bug against a windshield. It would make sense plummeting to his death like this. It’s the only thing. 

All of his limbs must shatter when he finally hits the ground. Richie remembers he’s fucking _ forty _ and groans, mentally cataloging each of his pains, rotating his wrists, wiggling his toes. No paralysis, he decides. No paralysis _ yet_. Who knows what’ll happen to him when he leaves Neibolt? There’s magic here that boggles the mind.

He lets his head fall back. There’s something digging into him there, but he can’t move it. Doesn’t have the energy to. He feels like he’s run eight marathons in a row, or like he’s been hit by an eighteen-wheeler, or like—

_ Like he’s been in the Deadlights, and he’s talked to Stan, and there are four worlds Eddie lives in, Eddie lives with him, and this is not one of them. _

Fuck, this is not one of them.

How long has he been in the Deadlights?

Richie opens his eyes, cranes his neck to look around. It is nowhere to be seen, or maybe it is, just in a different form, and none of the Losers are around, _ Eddie _ is not around, and Richie has a whole minute of mind-stopping fear. Where is he? Where are the others? He knows Eddie must’ve thrown the iron spike into It’s waiting mouth, that’s the only way Richie gets out of the Deadlights, but there is _ nothing _ and _ no one_, and Richie is—Richie is—he's _alone_.

Every curse word Richie knows floods through his brain. He knows a lot, made sure to memorize them all at, like, nine, and then learn them all in different languages just to spice it up. He hyperfixates on _ fuck_, though, always a good one, always reliable, and tries to get up, tries to _ move_, so he can get to Eddie, so Eddie can _ live_. He switches between a continuous stream of _ Eddieddieddieddieddieddieddieddieddie _ and _ fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck _ until there is nothing but that, nothing but sheer desperation and an anger that starts boiling in the pit of his stomach.

And then there is a voice. There is Eddie’s voice, shouting at him, shouting his name. “Richie! _ Richie_, I think I did it! I think I killed It! I think It’s dead for real this time!” 

And he’s just. He’s just _ leaning over him_. He’s on top of him, with his dirty face and white bandage, his brown eyes and his mouth. Richie knows what that mouth tastes like, knows what it can do, and he knows what _ he _has to do. Stan told him.

He reaches up to grab his waist, to pull him close, digging his feet into the ground so he can shove back and away, and then there is something wet spraying all over him, covering his glasses, sticking to his skin, staining his shirt, his hands. 

“_Richie_,” Eddie whimpers, blood coloring his lips and chin red, and they both look down to see the pincer-leg of that _ fucking spider _ bursting through Eddie’s chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eddie kaspbrak voice: please don't be mad, bill


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is brought to you by an incessant amount of page breaks, the word timeline (mentioned 25 times), all variations of the word believe (mentioned upwards of 50 times), the medical degree i got after a quick google search, stan as a boy scout, georgie's yellow raincoat, maturin the turtle, and the huge ass crush i have on bill hader.

Time stands still, as it often does when the world ends. 

* * *

There is a timeline where the Kaspbraks do not live in Derry, Maine, and there is a timeline where Eddie’s father does not die and he grows up without the weight of a fanny pack on his hips, and there is a timeline where Bill Denbrough does not have a stutter or a brother or a reason for seven kids to become friends. 

* * *

“_Richie_,” Eddie whimpers, blood coloring his lips and chin red, and they both look down to see the pincer-leg of that _fucking spider _bursting through Eddie’s chest. 

“Eddie,” Richie whispers back, confused, frowning behind the wide frames of his glasses. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. This isn’t—it’s _not_—

He scrambles to get leverage, to hold Eddie, and, and, and—he doesn’t _know_, but there’s not enough time, and Eddie is thrown away from him. The leg slips out of his chest with a sickeningly wet sound, so horrifying, so awful, and Richie—

Richie rolls to his side, throws up, and when his gagging stops, he turns back over. Pennywise looms over him, mouth wide and teeth sharp. He doesn’t stop him. He doesn’t even scream. 

* * *

There is a timeline where Eddie pines from the back of history class and Richie doesn’t know his name, and there is a timeline where Beverly Marsh is best friends with Greta Bowie, and there is a timeline where Ben Hanscom gives better than he ever has, and Henry Bowers dies in the Barrens after attempting to flay him with his father’s knife. 

* * *

“_Richie_,” Eddie whimpers, blood coloring his lips and chin red, and they both look down to see the pincer-leg of that _fucking spider_ bursting through Eddie’s chest.

Richie gurgles, a sharp pain between his ribs, and he feels Eddie’s hands pressing uselessly against the end of the leg, impaling him, impaling Richie, impaling them both. He wheezes, coughs, and chokes, blood warm and sticking to his shirt, filling his mouth, overflowing, _spilling_.

They die there, staring at each other. 

* * *

There is a timeline where initials are never carved into the Kissing Bridge, and there is a timeline where Eddie carves them first, _E+R_, and there is a timeline where Richie carves them, _R+E_, and he carves them over and over, a pent-up release of his emotions.

* * *

“_Richie_,” Eddie whimpers, blood coloring his lips and chin red, and they both look down to see the pincer-leg of that _fucking spider_ bursting through Eddie’s chest.

“Eds,” Richie blurts, covered in him, full of him, nothing but him—and not the way he wants, not the way Eddie deserves. 

“Richie,” Eddie whispers again.

“What?” 

“Don’t call me Eds,” he says, and smiles. He raises his left hand slowly and touches Richie’s cheek. Richie is crying, feeling the absence of the wedding ring Eddie’d worn the past two days. The skin is warm there, where it should be cold. “You know I… I…” Eddie closes his eyes, thinking how to finish, and while he thinks it over, he dies. 

* * *

There is a timeline where Bev has a crush on Stan, and there is a timeline where Mike gets the hell out of Derry and never looks back, and there is a timeline where the bonds they forged were too strong to be forgotten even as they forgot their hometown. 

* * *

“_Richie_,” Eddie blurts, back slammed to the ground. Richie’s got one knee pressed into his thigh, digging in, forcing rock through the back of his pants and into his skin. 

Richie smiles, or tries to, and red, thick blood spills over his lower lip, _drip drip drip _dripping down onto Eddie’s face like a leaky faucet. Eddie looks up at him, horrified. Richie’s face whitens with each passing millisecond, with each breath he struggles to take, and Eddie fumbles to hold his shoulders, or his hands, or to push the fucking leg out of his body.

“Don’t say I never did anything for ya, Eds,” Richie says, words incomprehensible, drowning in the blood that fills his mouth. 

The last thing he hears is Eddie shouting, “No no no no no no no _no_!”

* * *

There is a timeline where Stan calls them all, ten years down the line, and reminds them of Derry, of each other, of friendships that can stand the test of time, and there is a timeline where Stan stays after one of Richie’s shows and Richie remembers him, and his birds, and the steadfast loyalty that defined him, and there is a timeline where Eddie never marries Myra, but finds Richie again in a dive bar in Brooklyn.

* * *

“_Richie_,” Eddie whimpers, blood coloring his lips and chin red, and they both look down to see the pincer-leg of that _fucking spider _bursting through Eddie’s chest. 

“Eddie, no no no no no no, Eds, no, Eddie, please—”

He scrambles to get leverage, to hold Eddie, and, and, and—he doesn’t _know_, but there’s not enough time, and Eddie is thrown away from him. The leg slips out of his chest with a sickeningly wet sound, one that will never leave Richie for the rest of his life, and Richie—

Richie moves faster than he ever has, stumbling to his feet and _sprinting_, and he follows Eddie’s body where it lands, knowing instinctively where he is, curled into himself. 

He gets there before the rest of them, eases Eddie against a protruding rock. Strokes his face, cups his cheek, on his hands and knees, making Eddie look at him. 

Eddie coughs, splatters more blood on Richie’s face, but Richie doesn’t care; Richie only wipes it with his hand, spreads it, gets it in his mouth, on his tongue, in his eyes. He’d gladly bathe in the stuff if it meant Eddie got to live. _Do you hear that, Stan, Turtle God, It, Regular God, Jesus, All Of His Disciples_, he thinks desperately, angrily, _I’ll do anything, you pretentious fucks._

“Tell me what to do,” Richie begs. “You always know what to do.” 

Eddie shakes his head, the tiniest fraction of a movement, but Richie always knows what he’s trying to say. He could sneeze the wrong way and Richie would know if he had a cold, the flu, or bronchitis. His voice is a hoarse whisper when he says, “Come closer.”

Richie does, and Eddie winces, chest ripped in such a way that when Richie gets near him, he feels the flaps of skin, the broken bones, the insides that are on the outside. It gets all over his front, stains his yellow shirt. It makes it hard to get as close as Eddie seems to want him, but it doesn’t deter Eddie, who makes a mad, final grab at him, who exerts too much energy to slide his palms up Richie’s neck to his cheeks, who pulls him in and kisses him. It is singlehandedly somehow the worst kiss and the best kiss of Richie’s life. 

“Don’t leave,” Eddie breathes, hitching hiccups taking place of the wheezes. “I don’t want to die alone.” 

He is blurry as Richie looks at him, tears staining his glasses and sliding down his face, salty and wet. “You’re not going to die, Eds,” he says.

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie replies, almost as easy as breathing. _Almost_ because Eddie always liked it when Richie called him Eds.

* * *

There is a timeline where they meet up every month, and there is a timeline where holidays are not lonely but reasons to see if they can all fit in one bed again like they used to, and there is a timeline where all seven of them show up to the house on Neibolt, and there is a timeline where all seven of them crawl out of it.

* * *

“_Richie_,” Eddie whimpers, blood coloring his lips and chin red, and they both look down to see the pincer-leg of that _fucking spider _bursting through Eddie’s chest. 

“Eddie,” Richie replies, shell-shocked and lost, heart ricocheting against his ribs. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. They’re not supposed to lose anyone else. They’re supposed to walk out of here, six bodies, bruised and scratched but _breathing_. “Eds, I… _Eds_.” 

“In the pharmacy, I made It small,” Eddie blabbers, eyes wild, words streaming out of him feverishly. He’s getting hotter, clammier. Sweat clings to his hairline, wetness stains his lashes. He blinks, blinks, blinks. “I put my hands around Its neck and squeezed, and It… It exploded.” 

“It’s humongous now,” Richie says back. “I can’t just—I don’t think my hands are big enough for that.” 

Eddie huffs a snort, a laugh, maybe, and says, “They’re pretty big,” and for a brief moment, he looks like he used to. Looks _alive_. Looks ready to spar. “But that’s not what I meant, you can make it small, Rich, with your words and your voices. Make it feel like it made us, make it feel weak and vulnerable, make it feel—”

“Like it’s ripping out my heart?” Richie’s body shudders with a sob he swallows back down; he will be strong for Eddie now, he will be brave, even though he doesn’t want to be. Even though he doesn’t know _how_. 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. His gaze falls to Richie’s mouth, lingers. “We’ll meet again, Richie. I’m sure of it.” 

“Don’t get my hopes up, Spaghetti.” 

“M'not,” says Eddie. “Someone’s gotta tell you you’re not funny, right?” 

“I really want that someone to be you,” Richie admits.

Eddie shivers, eyes falling shut. “Who else would it be?” 

* * *

And then there is this one.

* * *

Richie tries not to jostle Eddie, moving his hands to cup his cheeks. His tongue prods at his bottom lip, and right there in the center is the half-healed scab of skin that has been split. In the Deadlights, Eddie’s teeth had been there, kissing him hard in his desperation. It shouldn’t be there now, when Richie is not in that world anymore, when that world did not exist.

But it did exist. It _does_ exist, doesn’t it, in another time, where Richie is fast enough?

_It’s real_, Eddie’s voice says in his head, _because it’s us. _

It’s always been real, even when he thought it wasn’t. Any world with Eddie and Richie together, that’s real. _They’re _real. 

He holds Eddie’s face and their eyes meet, and there’s a lifetime of conversations, a lifetime of experiences shared in the one glance, everything that’s never happened, and everything that has, and everything that will. Eddie’s lids flutter shut, lashes long and casting shadows on his cheekbones. 

Richie’s heart fucking aches, splinters, and breaks as he says, “I love you.” 

He says, “I love you,” and regrets not saying it sooner. Not saying it more. Regrets the fear, and the doubt, and the self-consciousness that kept him from being himself for so long. 

Eddie nods, a stuttered sort of motion, and his mouth moves, sticky and slick and red. “I love you too,” he gasps out, chest heaving around Its leg. 

It’s the first time either of them has said it out loud, as simple as it is, as simple as loving someone is supposed to be. It feels momentous, though. It feels important. It feels _big_. It feels life changing. 

Eddie leans into Richie’s touch. His blood smears on Richie’s fingers. Richie will wear his blood for the rest of his life if it means he’ll live. 

Richie looks at him and thinks about hammocks and first kisses and cuddling in blanket forts and going halfsies on sandwiches at the Barrens. He thinks, _You’re supposed to leave your wife for me. You’re supposed to live with me, grow old with me. We’re supposed to win this time. _

* * *

Time hiccups. 

* * *

Richie thinks, _Fuck those four worlds Stan was talking about. Fuck the Deadlights. Fuck that goddamn turtle. _

Richie thinks, _Belief is really powerful. Belief is how we did it the first time. Believe in Eddie, believe in Stan, believe in Bill, and Ben, and Bev, and Mike. Believe in yourself, Trashmouth._

Richie thinks, _It’s real because it’s us. _

Richie thinks, _I’m gonna make my own goddamn timeline. Try and fucking stop me._

* * *

Time restarts. 

* * *

_Some may call it magic_, Stan had said, back in a hotel room in New York, trying so desperately to save Richie from a lifetime of misery, and Richie had thought he’d mistaken _love_ for _magic_, since most of them hadn’t known love until they knew each other, a ragtag group of teens so thoroughly fucked up by life that a simple hug was enough to rattle the senses. 

But love can be magic, and magic can be love, and of course there’s something inexplicable here, in Derry, Maine, where bad things happen to children and adults look the other way. There has to be something to offset the evil that lurks in the shadowy corners of their hometown; there has to be something _more_ to their friendships—something that stands the test of forgetting, of time, of distance. Something that said, _Drop everything and go home, they’re waiting for you. They’ve been waiting for you this whole time._

Richie knows this, deep in his gut, the same way he knows his name, his address, and the feelings he’s had for Eddie since they were ten goddamn years old. He knows this in the way he knows how to kill It for good. 

“Eddie,” Richie blurts, desperate and fast, “Eddie, I need you to do something for me.” 

“Y-yeah,” Eddie says, “anything. What?” 

“I need you to believe you are not going to die,” he says, squeezing his hips. Eddie’s bleeding has slowed, but it still stains Richie’s hands, his face, the front of his pants. “I need you—I know that it hurts and you’re scared and you don’t want to be here, but I _need_ you to believe that, okay? You are _not_ going to die.” 

“I—how do you know that?” 

“Do you trust me?” Richie asks. 

“Yeah, I… of fucking course I do, asshole,” Eddie spits out, and Richie is grateful to hear the fevered pitch of his voice, not shaped by pain but by annoyance, like he can’t believe Richie would ask such a dumbass question. 

“Good, great, I trust you too,” Richie says. “It’s going to throw you across the cistern, okay, and you’re going to roll into some, like, cavern, I don’t know, but I need you to focus on your breathing, okay? You’re not going to die. I will not let that happen. I _promise_ you you will not die here.” 

Eddie’s head jerks into a nod. “I’m not going to die,” he tells him, and then, “Hey, you know I meant it, right? That I love you?” 

“Yeah,” says Richie. “I do.” 

“Like I love you different from the others,” Eddie continues on, scrunching up his nose. It’s clear he’s in pain, and he shouldn’t be talking, but he is, and behind him, like everything is moving in slow motion, Pennywise is rearing up to toss him. “Like I’m in love with you. I’ve been this whole time.” 

_Love is magic_, Richie thinks. “Me too,” he says, “but I think you’ve always known that.”

“Yeah, yeah, but just in case—”

“No _just in case_,” Richie says. “Tell me all the things you want when we’re all walking out of here—you know, on the way to the hospital, because I think I fractured my back.”

“I mean, I—”

“_Am going to live_,” Richie snaps at him. “And we’ll take you to the hospital too because you’re a germaphobe, obviously, it’s not like we’re _not_ going to take you to your favorite place—” 

“Fuck you,” Eddie retorts. 

“Fuck me yourself, you coward,” Richie snaps back, and there is a hint of a familiar smirk on Eddie’s face before Pennywise is flinging his body off the pincer. It makes a sickeningly wet, slimy sound that will haunt Richie in his dreams for years to come.

Richie winces when Eddie lands, rolling to a stop several feet away from him, and heaves himself up, his limbs creaking and joints cracking. The clown’s stupid face grins at him, big and bulbous, and someone should really tell him the lighting in his house is not doing him any favors. His face paint is cracked at the top of his forehead, his eyes crazed and wild. Richie stands there, staring at him, feeling less afraid of It than he’s felt of anything else, and wishes he could just tear him to shreds right there. 

It _ruined_ his life. It took everything away from him—his childhood, his friends, his sense of safety. It doesn’t get to do it again, the piece of shit. 

“Oh, _Richie_,” Pennywise says, almost jovially, “did you like your visit down the timeline? I picked a good one for you, didn’t I? Just like this one, but better: Eddie _lives_ in that one.” 

“He lives in this one, too, you sack of shit,” Richie shouts at him. “You don’t get to have him, you don’t get to have any of us, you’re not better, you’re not stronger, you’re just a motherfucking _bully_. Fuck you.” 

Pennywise frowns, shirking back. “You don’t mean that, do you, Richie? I only missed you so, you were such fun to play with! No one plays with me anymore, please play with me, Richie—” 

“Learn how to play with yourself, you fucking murderer. Fuck you for killing kids, fuck you for killing Georgie, and Stan, you good-for-nothing _clown_. Just _wait_ until I get my hands on you, I’m going to rip you _limb from limb_, you poser, you mimic, you gotta be something you’re not to scare us all, you’re _nothing_, you’re _pathetic_—” He is _spitting_ insults, mouthing running a mile a minute, a bunch of filth that comes with having a nickname like Trashmouth.

Pincer-legs fly around in fear, in pain, in anger, but Richie stands his ground, wanting this stupid thing to feel just as terribly as he does. Wants him to think he’s got it all, that he can kill them, and then take it away, just like he did to him. He’d love to knock his teeth out, to, to, to—is that baseball bat still down here? He’s going to hit him so hard in the face, his brains come out his _ears_—

“Rrrrrrrichie, come o-on,” Bill says, grabbing his arm and tugging him away, leaving Pennywise reeling in discomfort, eyes watching Richie’s every move. He knows Richie knows too much, knows how to kill him. He knows this is it for him. _Well, you did that to yourself, asshole_. “We-e-we have to get to Eddie.” 

Richie shrugs him off, twisting out of his grasp, and meets Bill’s startled, terrified gaze. “Stay with him, Bill. Make sure he’s breathing properly, like we used to. The panic attack thing—do it. Keep him calm. He doesn’t have his inhaler.”

“_What_?” Bill demands. “Where do you think you’re _going_?” 

“To find Stanley!” Richie yells over his shoulder, ignoring the twinge in his back, pumping his legs like he’s young again, trying to outrun Eddie or Bev, racing to the Barrens, trying to be the first into the water. 

“_To find_—Stuh-stuh-stanley’s _dead_, Richie!”

“Yeah,” Richie calls back, headed the way they came, to the hatch they climbed down. _But if I believe enough, he’ll show up. If I believe enough, I’ll fix it all. Belief is really powerful, Bill, you must know that, you must know how much we believe in you._

So he believes he has the upper body and core strength to fucking climb back up the tunnel, heaving himself out into the sewer water, believes that leaving Eddie downstairs with their friends is the right thing to do, believes they’ll all be okay without him, and sprints through the fucking Neibolt house until he’s back in the kitchen, the last place he’d seen some tiny part of Stan. 

It was his head, on some spider legs. His head, trying to _eat him_. His head, which is probably bashed in somewhere, as dead as Stan is. 

Richie slams open cabinets, kicks the refrigerator, pulls at closets. He twists the faucets for cold water and hot, rummages through the forgotten pantry, looks up at the ceiling, for holes where Stan’s spider had appeared before. 

There’s nothing there.

Stan is—he’s not _here_, and Richie has no plan, not without him, not without someone to bounce ideas off of, because he’s got _something_, but he needs to know it’ll work. He’s got one chance. _One_. It needs to be foolproof.

“_STANLEY_!” he yells, opening the fridge door and slamming it again. “Stanley Uris, I _know_ you can hear me! I know you were here, before, as the spider, and I _heard_ you, but I thought you were trying to eat me, so I didn’t listen. _Stanley_, come on, _please_—” 

Footsteps round the corner, and Richie grabs a knife from the drawer—odd that it’s still fully equipped despite the lack of residents—and flips it in his hand, the cool side of the blade against his palm. 

A tiny voice: “Richie, is that you?”

“_Georgie_?” he says, a shrill of a sound, and he grips the knife tighter, remembering the last time they’d all seen Bill’s brother here, how he hadn’t been himself, but a mirage. A trick by Pennywise. 

Georgie stops in the doorway, clad in his yellow raincoat, both arms intact. He looks at Richie, mouth circling into an _O_ that’d be comical if Richie weren’t so scared he’d have to kill him, and says, amazed, “You’re so _big _now!” 

Richie laughs, a nervous sort of thing. “You’re, uh—you’re small. Still. Hey, bud.”

“I’m dead, so of course I’m small,” Georgie replies, coming closer. “Bill’s okay, right? He’s still down there?” 

Richie nods, and he wishes he weren’t taking tiny steps backwards as Georgie drew ever closer. Wishes the countertop didn’t hit his waist as quickly as it did. He adjusts his hold on the knife. “He’s there, with the others,” he tells Georgie. “He’s okay. He’s with—” 

“Eddie,” Georgie says. “I saw what happened to him. Stan said It moved faster than It usually does.”

“Stan,” Richie repeats. His mouth feels heavy, full, sort of like he’s been stuck with Novocain and the dentist is about to fill one of his cavities. His _dad_, actually. His _dad_ is about to fill one of his cavities. He’d had several, back when he was a kid, mostly out of spite. “You’re with Stan? You’ve seen him? Where is he?” 

Georgie reaches out to take Richie’s hand, smooth and tiny and innocent, and despite Richie’s growing dread, he curls his fingers around his, holding back. Drops the knife on the counter behind him. Georgie’d been so little when Pennywise got him. Six, maybe, Richie thinks, just wanting to play with the boat Bill had helped him make. The _SS Georgie_. 

“He is trying to figure something out with the turtle,” says Georgie. “He is very old now and can’t really move, it’s so sad, but he’s really nice, he makes sure all of us kids are okay and have a place to stay here that isn’t so scary. It was reeeeeeeally scary before he came, when we were in the really bright lights.” 

“The Deadlights?” 

“I don’t know,” says Georgie. “They were bright. Things happened in them that were sometimes real but sometimes weren’t.”

Richie nods, sliding down the cabinets and sitting on his haunches. “Yeah, that’s the Deadlights. I was in them before.” 

“Stan tried to help you, so I had to distract It,” Georgie tells him. “It was really scary, but I didn’t want him hurting Billy, so I did it, but I don’t think I did it good enough.” He gets closer to Richie, makes him drop fully to the ground, and gets in his lap. His voice lowers to a whisper, like he knows there’s something else there, and Richie should really stop thinking kids have no tact. “Stan says we have to be careful because It is listening.” 

“Who is the turtle?” Richie asks. “Stan said—” 

“The turtle is Its brother,” comes Stan’s voice, and Richie turns his head to see his friend sitting atop the kitchen counter. “His name is Maturin, and he tried to help us when we were younger, but he could not achieve much. He just gave us supernatural abilities.” 

“Yeah, well, no dice. I can’t fly,” Richie says flatly.

Georgie laughs, says, “Me either, but I can do _this_!” and he’s gone in the blink of an eye, transported across the room. Then he’s back, cuddled into Richie’s chest. 

“_Stan_,” Richie snaps. He wraps an arm around Georgie’s waist, holds him close. 

Stan’s wrists are still slit as he reaches his arms up to rub his eyes. He wears glasses now, more fashionable ones than Richie’d ever had, things that accentuate his facial structure. He looks just like he did the last time Richie saw him, dark hair, long body, a nose that fits his face. But he’s tired now, shimmering around his edges, like he’s not planning on staying very long.

Comparing him to Georgie, he’s a mere flicker. If Richie reached out to him, he’d go right through him, whereas with Bill’s brother, he’s holding him like it’s 1988 and Georgie is still alive. 

The thought of Stan leaving him high and dry makes him incredibly nervous. Makes _this _incredibly significant. This is _it_. There are no do-overs. 

“Everything that we’re good at,” Stan says, “Maturin gave to us.” 

“The turtle,” Richie concludes. “The one that can’t help us anymore.” 

“Yes. As we weaken It, we weaken Maturin. He cannot continue to disrupt the course of time, or change the future, like he used to,” says Stan. “The timelines—it’s all Maturin’s doing, an attempt to fix what his brother created. He’s given every child It has taken a chance at a different life. We’ve all—we’ve experienced this, and we’ve experienced better, and sometimes we experience worse. It is a loop.” 

Richie listens, but he does not care. He cares that Georgie is sitting in his lap, but in real time, he is dead as a doornail, the reason for Bill’s books, the reason for Bill’s complex, and his survivor’s guilt. He cares that Stan is dead, and that Eddie is _dying_, and that downstairs he’s abandoned his friends, and for what? To find out there is nothing he can do? That they are all destined to lose someone else close to them, to fall back into the same patterns they’d thought they’d grown out of? Richie thinks _not_. 

“So what?” he demands. “I’m supposed to let it happen? You _told me_ it wouldn’t happen if I knew what to do, if I believed in myself, if I woke myself up—well, I didn’t wake myself up, but I remembered, and I tried, and there is still a gaping”—he presses his hands to Georgie’s ears—“_fucking _hole in Eddie’s chest, Stanley.”

“No, Richard,” a deep, booming voice declares, proper and informal, young but old, close yet distant. Through the window outside, Richie sees a massive eye, unblinking and all-knowing, instead of the abandoned street of Neibolt. “You are not supposed to let it happen. I have given you many chances to make things right, but it has taken you too long to understand me.” His pupil moves to look at Stan, who seems to become more transparent. “To understand your friend.” 

Richie gazes at him, looking at him the same way he looks at authority figures. At teachers, at people who try to tell him what to do. He feels thirteen and forty all at once, combative and docile, angry and defeated. “I assume you are the turtle,” he says. “Maturin.” 

“Yes,” the eye says. “We have met many times in your dreams.” 

“Can’t say I remember them,” Richie replies, but when the thing looks at him again, he is struck with all the nightmares he’s forgotten, the ones wiped clean from his memory. Werewolves, and corpses, and Eddie’s Neibolt body trying to smother him. Times when he should have died but didn’t, saved by alarm clocks and his mother’s shouting voice and the phone ringing too loudly in his ears despite him not having one in his room. He’d spent his whole life remembering the horrors of this place, but never truly knowing what they were. 

“That is the point,” Maturin says. “I have protected you for as long as I can. You are my greatest heroes, the seven of you”—and he looks at Stan again, Stan, who is dead, Stan, who Richie never got to know as an adult—“and I have tried to shield you from my brother’s horrors. I cannot do it any longer. I cannot shelter you.”

Stan shakes his head, and Georgie burrows his in Richie’s chest, and Maturin blinks in the window. The Neibolt house shudders, foundations cracking. 

Richie swallows. “So that’s it? We all die here, then?” And he thinks that is a better way to go than what he expected, living the rest of his life without Eddie, knowing Eddie died in a sewer, knowing Eddie loved him in return, still after all these years. Better than ending up back at the Kissing Bridge, recarving initials that meant nothing if he couldn’t have the person he’d carved them for. 

“No,” says the turtle. “I can give you one last chance here, but in doing so, I use up all of my powers. All of _their _powers. I am drawing on them to speak with you now.”

“_What_ powers?” Richie demands. “This is not a goddamn _fairytale_. We’re just—we’re _people_, and if you’re not going to help me, I’ll help Eddie myself—” 

“You cannot,” Maturin says at the same time Stan hisses at him for being impolite, like _manners_ are what’s important here. “He is dying, Richard. He will be dead within the hour. You can’t waste time.” 

“I am wasting time sitting here with you.”

“You called for me,” he says. “I answered.” 

“I called for _Stan_.” 

“You called for _help_.”

“Think about it,” Stan provides, shooting him a look, “the second we were all together, it felt like we _clicked_, right? Like we made sense together, like we could take on the world and win. That was because of him.” He jerks his head towards the window; the eye blinks in agreement. “He created the Losers Club. He gave us the best friends we’d ever have—”

“Made us his perfect soldiers, too,” Richie spits. “Took those friends away.” 

A gust of air, sad in nature, swirls around them. Maturin says, “It had to be done.”

“Why? So we’d make the mistake of coming back here, finishing up the job you’re too frightened to do yourself?”

“_Richie_!” 

“What? Am I wrong, Oh Benevolent Turtle God?” Richie asks. “You gave us these powers, sure, _whatever_, and you let us go toe to toe with the worst thing in the goddamn world, and then what? It didn’t _die_, but we did. We _are_. Greatest heroes, my ass.”

“I understand you’re upset—” 

“I am well past _upset_,” Richie shouts. “I’m angry, and I’m scared, and I’m covered in my _best friend’s blood _because _you lied to me_!” He shoves a finger towards Stan, hand shaking, and cringes at the red along his knuckles, wrapped around his ring finger. “I don’t care about my life’s purpose or whatever bullshit you’re all spewing at me, I don’t care if It dies at all this time around, I just want to save him! I will _not _lose him again. I did not get a taste of what my life could be like just for it to be taken away from me, you stupid fucking _amphibian_.” 

Georgie tugs on Richie’s sleeve, says softly, gently, “Turtles are reptiles, Richie.” 

Richie looks at him, looks at Stan, looks at that gigantic eye in the window, and, despite his best efforts, bursts into tears.

Georgie gasps, pressing his little fingers to Richie’s cheeks and wiping frantically at the wetness there. His raincoat sleeve is slick and plasticky against his skin.

Stan sighs, sharp and annoyed, but moves closer to him, sliding down the cabinets until he’s right next to Richie. He is a sliver of who he’d been before, back in the Deadlights, which Richie can relate to. He can still feel him grasp his arm, though, right below his elbow. A cold, phantom touch, but still there. A comfort as he unravels.

“I am not taking him away from you,” Maturin tells him. “I would not be here if that were the case.” 

Richie sniffles, pulling his hand over his eyes. “Sorry,” he says. 

“It’s okay,” Georgie replies. “I cried a lot when I found out I was dead.” 

And—was that supposed to make Richie feel better? What the fuck. Georgie is perpetually six. Georgie is dead. Georgie _knows_ he’s dead, and Georgie is trying to _comfort _him, a forty-year-old who just cried like a fucking baby because he’d called a turtle an _amphibian_. Literally just—just get him out of this hellhole, _please_.

Stan adds, blankly, “I cried a lot in general,” and then, “Don’t you dare tell anyone that, Tozier, or I’ll find a way to haunt you for the rest of your life.” 

“My lips are sealed, Urine,” Richie says, voice shaky and weak, swollen with tears. He clears his throat. “So, uh. These supernatural abilities—what are they? How can they help?” 

“Bill was perfect, a natural born leader, and he could outrun the devil,” Stan says. “Beverly had perfect aim and was the glue that kept us together. We all came back into this house _for her_. Ben could build things, anything we wanted, and he made us feel safe in those places. Mike was so knowledgeable, and so sure, and _so good_, and you had all those voices, could use words in ways we couldn’t, and Eddie always knew where to go, how to calculate risks, and how to perform all those medical procedures.” 

“And you always knew the right thing to do,” Richie says, the images of them, lanky-limbed teens trying to survive the summer. “You always showed up right on time, right when we needed you.” 

Stan nods, and that grayish-silver flush coats his cheeks again. Even in death that little shit can’t take a compliment. 

“That magic does not fade as you age,” Maturin says. “It has made you who you are. It brought you back and will connect you for life.”

“Great, love that,” Richie says. He’s always known he couldn’t have gotten anywhere on his own. Couldn’t have made it without some sort of _push_, but he’d thought it was just him having the right connections. How naïve. “But how will it help Eddie?” 

“Belief,” says Stan. “You’ve already planted the seed; you just need to follow through on the growth.” 

Richie glares at him. “I think this is why it took me so long to understand anything you said,” he decides. “You talk in goddamn riddles. You sent me _two birds_. English, please, Stanley.” 

“We _believed_ Bill was a leader, that he would know what to do, that he would always save us. He believed in Silver, so Silver performed,” Stan says, condensing their lives into tiny, clipped sentences. “We believed Bev was one of us, and so she was, and she kept us together. I believed in the birds, and Eddie believed in his medications. We believed each other when all the bad things happened, and we believed that together we could face it all. I told you this all before.” 

_Belief is a powerful thing. It’s how we did it the first time._

It’s so simple it’s laughable, but maybe that’s the point. Maybe children have the right of it. Maybe they’re smarter than the rest of us, and we just give them shit because we don’t want to be bothered to understand. Because we think we are too old, that we are somehow better because we know more. 

_Some may call it magic_, Stan had said of their friendships, and now Maturin says simply, “Believing is seeing.” 

Georgie says, “It’s almost time.” 

The house creaks as if to agree. It was always going to die at this moment and no matter how strong the divine intervention, this cannot be changed. Other things can, but not this. Evil cannot last long when so much Good is battling against it.

“When my brother dies, we will die with It,” Maturin tells Richie. “Specifically I will choke on all the timelines I created. They will fade, as we often do in death. They will all fade, my brother’s victims. Stan is already fading now, having used his power to help you.” 

Stan grins and shoots a finger gun at Richie. Richie wants to slap him. 

“Will you tell Bill I don’t blame him?” Georgie asks, looking up at Richie with large eyes. Richie never noticed he’d lost a tooth before he died, right there in the front of his mouth. It winks at him, the space. Tugs at his heartstrings. “Tell him that I love him and I am proud of him. He was the best.”

Richie digs his teeth into his cheek, breathes, and says, “He still is.” 

“I know,” Georgie says happily. “He always will be.” 

Stan squeezes Richie’s arm. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. 

“Don’t be sorry, you did your best,” Richie replies. “I can always count on you, Stan the Man.” 

“Remember what it was like to be a kid. Go back to childhood, but do not get lost in it,” Stan instructs. _Too late_, Richie thinks, _that’s all we did, the past two days. _“I wrote you a letter, by the way. Patty will mail it, I hope.”

“What, like a suicide letter?” 

“What, no, of course not, what the hell,” Stan splutters out. “It explains everything. Just—read it, okay? And remember I love you.” 

Richie smiles at him. “How could I forget?” 

“You did, once,” Stan says.

“It won’t happen a second time,” Richie promises, and he keeps his promises. His palm stings and he unfolds his fist, looking at the scar from the Coke bottle Stan had wielded in the summer sun. They all do, doesn’t matter how they do it. 

Maturin clears his throat and Richie snaps to attention, looking out the window again. The sky is beginning to lighten behind him, and it feels symbolic in the way crossing out of New York had been, minutes ago, lifetimes ago, in the Deadlights. Everything will change here once morning comes. 

It is up to Richie to make sure it is changed the right way. 

“You have twenty minutes,” the turtle says. “Close your eyes and picture the cistern. I will transport you back there. Believe in yourself, Richie, the same way I have always believed in you.” 

Richie considers him, the turtle, for a moment, and realizes he has spent his whole life listening to him, a voice in the back of his head he’d thought was the conscience he’d joked he didn’t have. Huh.

He takes one last look at Stan, and at Georgie, and then does as he’s told. He feels Georgie take his hand, small between his fingers, and there’s Stan’s palm on top, squeezing them together. He is filled with childlike wonder and conviction, with the completeness of _knowing_—the right thing, the hard thing, and when he is needed—and then Richie feels his entire body shudder, hands freed of the comforting touches of friends and family, once again surrounded by dank, damp darkness. 

It shrieks somewhere behind him. 

Ben calls It a _motherfucking clown_.

Richie looks at him and sees a kid who had been beaten down for his weight, for his love of books. Chased through the Barrens, hunted down with a knife. He hopes he’s proud of who he’s become, hopes he knows he’s always been more than what the world, and Bowers, and their dumbass town told him he was. 

He blinks, and he sees Ben, chubby-cheeked and cute, ready to risk it all for a bunch of snot-nosed, loudmouthed, dirty-talking kids he’d fallen into one summer day. 

If Ben isn’t proud of himself, Richie is. 

Richie’s proud of all of them. 

* * *

Bev shouts, “_Old woman_!” at It, and Richie doesn’t understand the implications of that one, but he understands the way It rears its ugly head back and hisses. 

She’d been the coolest girl at their middle school, always up for a good time, always ready to stand her ground. To defend herself, and them, and anyone else who didn’t deserve to be attacked. She’d chosen them because she liked them, not because they were the only option, and having a girl decide they were cool enough—and they were, weren’t they? _I never felt like a loser when I was with you_—meant a lot when they were all growing into their bodies, when Richie was struggling with who he was. 

To have someone like you for _you_, that’s the kind of shit the Losers were founded on. 

And Bev has always deserved to have someone like her for who she is, and who she isn’t, and who she will be. Richie hopes she finds that one day, hopes she realizes her worth again, and fights for herself the way she used to fight for them. 

* * *

Mike calls It a medley of things, years’ worth of pent-up frustrations releasing themselves from the box he’d stored them in. _Clown, fake, poser, phony_. A list of names that are the PG version of the shit he’d been called, the things people had assumed of him. 

It was always baffling to Richie how no one could look past Mike’s skin to the person he was beneath. Soft and good, a kid who’d gotten the short end of the stick over and over, his first offense living in Derry. He couldn’t kill the livestock even though he had to, and he almost died at the hands of Bowers and had never used his full strength to fight back, kind of like he thought he deserved it. 

He’s better than all of this, always has been. 

Mike Hanlon, the kid from the farm, who got chased by Bowers into the arms of the Losers, who embraced him as one of their own. Mike Hanlon, who watched them all go, one by one, forgetting him while he never forgot them. Mike Hanlon, who saw too much destruction in his life to fully turn his back on it (on _It_), and stayed in the town that hated him, so he could be there when everything started up again. Mike Hanlon, too good, too good, _too good._

Mike Hanlon, a librarian, a historian, and the person who knew it all. Who brought them together, who remembered them as they were, faults and all, and still loved them the same. Mike Hanlon, who will one day go on to help Bill with his next book, who will get to drive out of Derry for the first and last time, who will get to live his life the way he always wanted.

God, Florida fucking sucks, but if that’s where Mike still wants to go, Richie’s gonna drive him there himself. 

* * *

He’s got less than twenty minutes left.

He books it.

* * *

In the vision Stan showed him, It didn’t make this much of a scene. He assumes something has changed, or maybe It knows what Richie knows, that he’s been helped by people he’s killed, by Its own brother. Maybe he wants to stop him before he can get to Eddie. Maybe he doesn’t want to die without another fight. Maybe he wants to take one of them down with him. Maybe, in the end, it doesn’t really matter. 

Richie doesn’t focus on that, squinting and searching for the hole Eddie’d been flung through. He zeroes in on it, sees the steps that lead down to it, flashes back to a time where they all stood there, six of them, and Eddie’d pulled him out of the way of a rogue pincer. 

He knows he has to zag left to avoid falling rock, and that he needs to duck right _here_, and that when he throws his arms over his face and slides through the opening to the cavern, he’ll see Bill and Eddie. 

There is no time to waste, not when the clock is ticking the way it is and he’s already wasted so much of it, but there is Eddie, and he’s seen Eddie in some pretty bad situations before—broken arm, covered in vomit, snotty from the flu he pretended he didn’t have, covered in poison ivy rash because he didn’t believe Stan, their resident Boy Scout. 

_But there is Eddie_, and he’s never seen him like this. He’s propped against the wall, and his eyes are glassy, and his body is limp, and there is smeared blood on his face, dried in patches like it’s been wiped away by a gentle hand. He is focused on Bill, though, following along with what he’s saying, a slight furrow in his brow. 

_I believe I believe I believe I believe_, Richie thinks desperately. 

Bill looks up, frowns at him, and Richie, for a brief second, wonders what he looks like. Then that thought is gone, and he’s glancing away, back to Eddie. 

“Where have you _been_?” Bill demands, and he’s got his angry _If you say summer one more fucking time_ voice on. His _You killed my brother_ voice.

“Around,” Richie says vacantly, not about to tell his secrets when he’s not even sure they’re—_no, don’t think like that, we need all the positivity we can get_. “How is he?” 

Bill squeezes Eddie’s hand and scrambles up. “Really hanging on to a puh-promise you made to him,” he says. “Honestly _hanging_ on to it. I thought he duh-duh-duh-duh”—and he’s doing the thing he does when he gets upset, unable to form the word, and normally Richie would filter it in for him, but he can’t say it either or it’ll be true, so he waits—“duh-_died_ twice but he…” He shakes his head, face covered in gunk and grime, hair stuck to his forehead. “He asked for you.” 

“Go,” Richie orders, gesturing to the cistern, where Mike’s voice mixes with Bev’s and Ben’s, “kill the fucker, Big Bill.” 

“W-w-w-what are you going to do?” 

“What I always do,” Richie says, and he moves towards Eddie.

* * *

It had been easy to follow Bill to the gates of hell. You took one look at him, tall and strong and perfect, braving the elements, and you had no choice. Thirteen years old and Richie gave him a lot of shit, but Richie would still die for him any day of the week. He’d give up his summer all over again, just to make Bill happy. 

He calls after him, before he can enter the fray, “Georgie says he’s proud of you.” 

Bill turns around, raises a brow, and replies, “He’s always been proud of me, even when I didn’t deserve it.” 

“You’re the best,” Richie tells him. “The best friend, the best brother. The best guy I know.” 

“You’re not so bad yourself, Richie.” 

“Look at that, Billy-boy,” Richie teases, heat rushing to his cheeks. “No stutter.” 

“Nah, it’s still there,” Bill says. “You guys just never really heard it. You always only heard me.” 

* * *

“Hey,” Richie says when it’s only the two of them, down on his hands and knees. “Heard you were lookin’ for me.” 

Eddie hardly moves when he replies, “Yeah, you normally don’t leave me alone for that long. Forgot how peaceful it was.” 

“Shut up,” Richie says. “You missed me.” 

He blinks, and that means _yes_, the way he leaves his eyes closed for a moment too long. “Spent my whole life missing you.” 

“Relatable content,” Richie says. Now is not the time to get into his feelings. There will be hours and days and years past this for that. They will have forever and more. Richie believes that. “How ya holdin’ up?” 

Eddie lifts his fingers up like he wants to shrug his shoulders. “There’s a fucking hole in my chest,” he says. 

“Well, yeah,” Richie replies. “Very astute.” 

“It hurts like a bitch,” Eddie tells him. “Is that what you wanted to hear? I’d love for it to just stop, but I was born to suffer.” 

Richie digs his nails into the heel of his palm, leaning back onto his calves. “Always so melodramatic,” he says, and that’s the wrong thing to say, given the situation, but he can’t build up Eddie’s anxiety. “Hey, remember how you always knew all the weird names for shit? Like—like—influenza?” 

(_staphylococcus_, and _xerosis_, and _epistaxis_) 

“Oh, you mean the correct medical terminology for all the diseases you didn’t think existed?” Eddie corrects. “Yes, I remember that, and I think you still probably have no idea what a MRSA infection is.” 

Richie doesn’t, not really, he just knows that it’s pretty bad. Eddie can tell him all about it later.

Later, later, later, because there will _be_ a later. 

“Yes, that,” Richie says. “Do you know what the name of this”—he waves his hand at Eddie’s chest—“nonsense is? What would they call this?” 

Eddie frowns at him, his nose wrinkling just a little, and says, “Why?” Mouths, _Nonsense._

“Wanna know what I’ll have to tell the doctors,” Richie says, casually. “Better to give ‘em all the facts, right, that’s what your mom always did. Gave ‘em the _wrong_ facts but she gave a lot of them, anyway.” 

“Rich, I don’t think I’m going to—” 

“Humor me,” Richie interrupts, and his voice comes out harder than he intended. “Please. What is it called?” 

Eddie jerks his head down, as if to look, as if he doesn’t somehow have every medical book known to man memorized, as if he’s not experiencing it currently. “Probably a sucking chest wound,” he tells him. “Not sure, though, because the wounds are pretty big, but I’ve got all the other symptoms.” 

“So a sucking chest wound,” Richie reiterates. “That’s what it is?”

“Yeah, a sucking chest wound,” Eddie repeats. “Sure. We’ll go with that.” 

“Because of what symptoms?” 

“What are you doing?” Eddie asks. 

“Being thorough, playing Doctor, shut up and tell me the symptoms you have.” 

“An opening in the chest,” says Eddie. “And you hear how I’m breathing?” Richie does, the hissing, wheezing sound the new soundtrack to all of his nightmares. “And there’s the bleeding, and this, like, foam here, it’s pink, maybe, and—” He coughs. It’s wet and red and thick. Another symptom, probably.

Richie believes this is a sucking chest wound, now his least favorite wound of all, and tries to remember what it is like to believe something so fully.

He chases that thought, deep down, pursues it like the memories he’s forgotten, the childhood he’s been denied, slowly coming back to him piece by piece. He grasps on to the strength of believing in Santa, of being six and believing his parents could save him from anything, of believing snow days will come if he sleeps with silverware under his pillow, his pajamas on backwards, and ice cubes thrown on his porch. Of being so shaken from nightmares he honest to God mainfested them—the Boogeyman, a clown, monsters in the closet, under the bed—lurking in his room, hiding in the shadows. Of trusting a nightlight to scare them away, to keep him protected _(It's the other way around, Mike: Turn dark into light, turn dark into_ _light_). Of the power of a sleepy voice on the other end of the phone, lulling him back to sleep, cocooned in the security of someone else, there if anything happened to him. In the strength of hugs, and tears, and _friendship_. They believed they were stronger in pairs, in groups, _in seven_, and so they were. 

As a kid, he’d believed the Teenage Werewolf was the scariest thing, and he believed if he tried hard enough he could convince them all he was straight, and he believed that Eddie was the cutest boy in the world, and he believed that if Eddie could just like him back, the world would be a prettier, brighter place. He believed in good things and bad things, and all of them were as real as his belief that right now Eddie will live, that the magic that runs in their veins, that is fighting the evil behind them, will come out victorious one last time, and do the right thing. That the magic will listen to Richie’s heart the same way It had listened to it, a constant, steady beating for Eddie, and not use it against him, but let him play for keeps. 

He remembers Eddie trusted the doctors at the hospital, and the things his mother said, and the medications he was fed. He believed that his inhaler would cure his asthma, and he believed he had asthma because his mother and the doctors and the pharmacist said so. He believed that doctors were there to help him, and that his mother was there to keep him healthy and fit, to _love_ him, and that if he was provided with a prescription, he obviously needed it. He believed so hard he’d _given _himself asthma—or an anxiety disorder, but that’s not what’s important here. 

What’s important is how strongly Eddie believed in all of that, and how he’d been determined to be prepared for anything and everything. How he internalized his mother’s fears for him, made them his own, and could pull a whole goddamn pharmacy out of thin air. Richie used to call him Dr. Kaspbrak, with his little fanny pack and excess of knowledge no one could figure out how he knew, a scrawny, tiny thing at twelve, thirteen, fourteen, who hadn’t even taken Biology yet, _but knew_. 

He has an entire toiletry bag, back at the Townhouse, and if this world has any similarities to the one Richie quite literally fell out of, Eddie still believes in the power of medicine. Carries it around with him everywhere.

Richie does, too, because Richie believes in Eddie, and wherever he is, Eddie believes in him, too. Every world, every timeline, every lifetime. 

Richie grabs his hands, still warm, and presses his thumb to his pulse point. Still here. Stronger than he thought, but not strong enough to please him. “How would they treat this?” he asks Eddie, the final question. The only one that matters (_for now_: there is another that will surpass this in importance, but that is not for a long while). 

_Believing is seeing._

Eddie flits their fingers together, starts to say, “I don’t know,” and then wrinkles his nose, almost like he's confused. He blurts out, fast and furious, in a voice that somehow sounds like him, and Maturin, the turtle god, and Stan all wrapped into one: “The doctor delivers oxygen to the body, most likely with a face mask, and the patient is knocked out so the surgeon can operate. They’ll insert a chest tube into the pleural space to drain the fluids from around the lungs, and they’ll keep the tube in until all the excess air and fluid has been drained.” 

_Believing is seeing._

Eddie gasps, hard, like he’s finally able to take that breath he’s been straining to reach, and some of the color returns to the apples of his cheeks. The feverish sheen in his eyes lessens, and he breathes greedily, quickly. Richie wants to tell him to slow down or he’ll hyperventilate but is too afraid to interfere.

_Believing is seeing._

“And then,” Eddie says, “the surgeon will stitch the wound up to prevent further bleeding and to keep air from getting inside. Depending on the severity of the wound, it can take anywhere from seven days to seven months to heal.” 

_Believing is seeing_.

Richie will never forget the sight before him: Eddie, covered in his own blood, soaked with sewer water, hunched over himself, chest _glowing_ where he’s been stabbed through, skin stitching itself back together. 

_Believing is seeing._

There’s Georgie’s little hand, and Eddie Corcoran’s, and Betty Ripsom’s, and all the other kids that It killed, even the ones before Richie’s time. The one that Richie yelled at in the Chinese place, the one Bill tried so desperately to save, to prove he could save _someone_. They are all there, pushing Eddie, brave, beautiful Eddie, back together, making him whole. Stan’s hand is last, is purposeful in how it presses against Eddie’s chest, in how it comes back drenched in blood, in thin red and thick, spongy black. Absorbing. 

There is a pregnant pause where the glow lingers on Eddie, spilling through the ragged hole in his shirt, and as it fades, Richie thinks he makes out the shadow of the three-fingered salute of the Boy Scouts, Stan’s final goodbye. 

And then—

Eddie coughs, and nothing comes out of his mouth.

And then— 

Eddie coughs, and he does not wince in pain. 

And then—

Eddie coughs, and Richie believes in miracles, and maybe he believes in God now, too, but only in the shape of a huge ass turtle, and his best friend, a stickler for rules he always meticulously broke, and a little six-year-old boy who loved his brother.

_Believing is seeing._

Richie doesn’t ask before he’s hooking his hands along the hem of Eddie’s shirt and slowly tugging it up, inch by cautious inch. 

Beneath the stained, ripped fabric is nothing but a chest—Eddie’s chest—and a fresh scar, pink with new skin, long and thin, the length of his sternum. His heart beats, steady and strong.

_Thump, thump, thump. _

_Alive, alive, alive. _

_Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. _

This time, when Richie bursts into tears, he’s not ashamed of them. He is unapologetic in his crying.

_Believing is seeing. _

(_Thanks for showing up, Stan._)

“Richie, I—” Eddie stops himself, at a loss for words, and looks down. “What just happened?” 

“I don’t know,” Richie lies, dropping his shirt and clutching his face, “but I think you should become a doctor.” 

* * *

There is a whine from the cistern, loud and shrill, like a balloon zipping through the air and deflating, faster and faster until it is nothing but rubber casing. 

The house on Neibolt Street trembles, shudders, cracks. 

Four sets of footsteps rush into the cavern, tired and panting but _alive_. Mike says, “We have to get out of here; it’s going to collapse.” 

“How’s,” Bev starts to ask, and then she’s silent, looking at Eddie, looking at Richie, sniffling as tears spill down her cheeks, making lines in the dirt that’s settled there. “_Oh_, Eddie!” 

“Can you walk?” Richie asks him.

“I’m not,” Eddie begins. “Probably? I don’t know actually.” 

Ben bats Richie out of the way, who gets steadied by Bill. “No time to find out,” he says, voice gruff and hoarse from all the screaming. “Arms up, Eddie.” 

Eddie meets Richie’s eyes as Ben heaves him up, throwing him over his shoulder like he’s nothing but a sack of flour at the market. Eddie’s entire face turns pink; he is cute cute _cute_. 

“Be careful!” Mike exclaims. “He’s got—“

“No, he doesn’t,” Richie says. Eddie nods his head. 

“What, _how_, we all saw—“

“Come on,” Ben urges, though he loosens his grip on Eddie, makes it softer. “I’m not getting stuck in this fucking place because y’all are too slow. Ask all the questions you want once we’re aboveground.” 

“Yeah, I have a lot of those,” Bill says, offering Richie a hand up. He takes it, squeezes, and uses Bill’s momentum to stand. 

“It’s kind of a long story,” Richie provides. Deadlights, timelines, Stan’s ghostly meddling—_oh, my_. 

Bev’s smile is blinding. “Good thing we’ve got all the time in the world now, right?” 

* * *

_I didn’t realize, you know, the kind of friendships we had, they don’t make those very often._

_No, some may call it magic. _


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are seven (7) different versions of this chapter on my laptop. i am exhausted. this is the version you get because it’s the least angsty which is WILD tbh.
> 
> i call this “The One Where Richie Cries” because he does. like, a lot.

Ben carries Eddie all the way to the hospital.

It’s like they’re in grade school again, following the line leader and walking through town, silent except for Eddie’s complaints—_put me down, I can walk, I’m not fragile, my legs are not broken_—which all fall on deaf ears. Ben is not willing to risk it, and he’s strong enough to carry the load, and Bill watches them sharply, ready to argue. 

Mike takes a left turn. 

Richie feels the sun move out from behind a cloud, weak in the growing morning, and watches the light fall over Eddie’s face. It washes over his skin tenderly, gently, like an old friend, and he is captivated by it. It softens him, curves out his edges, makes him appear younger, calmer. There is blood all over him, but even that is somehow wiped away with the power of the sun. And he is looking at him, catching his gaze over Ben’s shoulder, holding it, owning it, _ possessing _it.

Richie’s stomach drops to his feet, where it decides to live indefinitely, and with the light, and the Maine backdrop, and the group around him, his _ friends_, he can almost see the Barrens around them. Can almost see Eddie’s tiny, teenage face, with the cheeks still full of baby fat he won’t entirely lose until he’s eighteen, and the little cast, with the bright red _ V_, and the way the light hit his eyes, made them hazel, and the way he smiled at him, like he was the only person there that day, like Richie was all that mattered. 

He smiled at him like that in Jade of the Orient. 

Bev takes his hand, steadies him. Brings him back to the present. 

He tears his gaze from Eddie, looks down at her. She’s covered in blood, and dirt, sewer water drying to her skin, curling the ends of her hair. They make a pretty picture, don’t they, a bunch of middle-aged losers in varying stages of concerning untidiness. Not that anyone in this godawful town fucking _ notices_, like all of this is _ normal_: Ben carrying a fully grown man miles and miles; Eddie wearing half of his blood like an armor; Bill drenched from almost drowning, figuratively and literally; Bev, the only woman, looking like she clawed her way out of hell with her bare hands. 

Richie doesn’t know what he looks like. He doesn’t _ want _ to know, but he can see his fingers, twisted with Bev’s. They are dirty, and scabbed over, which reminds him that they hurt, actually, and he doesn’t remember how they got that way. What did he _ do_? 

They’re bloody, too, but it’s unclear if it’s his or Eddie’s. 

He squeezes her back. She smiles, and it brightens her face. And Richie’s first real, coherent thought post-_It _is how pretty her face is, how she’s always had a pretty face, even when she’s being fierce and strong, even when it’s an expression that’s not supposed to be pretty. 

Something breaks, then. 

Eddie’s decided just to coast in Ben’s arms, tucking his face in his neck. Ben loosens his grip around him, shifts him so he’s more comfortable, and says something to him that’s too quiet for Richie to hear, all the way in the back.

“Hey, guys,” Eddie calls to them all, and Richie stiffens. He’s not sure why, but his mind goes straight to these terrible conclusions, to _ the magic is gone and Eddie will be too_. 

Bev slides her other hand up his spine like she can pull the tension from him, and he thinks she knows, of course she knows. He’s never been subtle a day in his life. 

“I think I lost my wallet in the sewer,” Eddie continues. “Do you think that’ll be a problem?” 

“Oh my _ god_,” Bev says. 

Mike guffaws, right in front, and says back to him, “I think you’ll be okay. It’s not like they’re not going to treat you.” 

“Yeah,” Richie says, because he’s got no control over his mouth, like, _ ever_, even though he’s a grown-ass adult. “You’re like every doctor’s wet dream right now, right, you look like you’ve been shish-kebabed, and I bet you go to the doctor all the time, so you’re definitely in the system, if that’s what you’re concerned about.” 

“I don’t go to the doctor in _ Derry_,” Eddie says back. 

“But, like, you _ go _ to the doctor,” Richie replies. “You get your physical, and all your check-ups, and when you don’t feel well, you have a licensed professional tell you what’s wrong with you—”

“Do you _ not_?” Eddie asks, one eye flush against Ben’s shoulder. “Richie, when was the last time you had your annual physical? Do you even have a _ PCP_?” 

Richie grins at him. His cheeks kind of ache, and his head throbs right between his eyes. At his temples. He ignores that, says to Eddie, “What’s a PCP?” 

And, god, if Eddie were standing, if he were fully healed, at one hundred percent, he’d go absolutely feral on him. He can see the change in his gaze, the way it sharpens, heats up. Richie loves this look, would poke and prod at Eddie until he’d get to this point and would have to physically fight down the urge to kiss him, to see what Eddie tasted like when he was worked up and angry. 

But not _ angry_, just riled. He was never angry at Richie, remember, he could never be. 

“A _ primary care_—fuck off, Richie, Jesus Christ, I cannot _ stand _ you—” 

“Good thing you’re not standing then, am I right?” 

Eddie blinks at him, full of so much attitude it’s astounding it can fit inside him, and Richie’s smile widens. Eddie stares, _ he stares_, and then he buries his face back into Ben’s shoulder and fucking _ screams_. It’s muffled against Ben’s impressive amount of muscles, but they can all hear it clear as day. 

Ben’s shoulders shake and he attempts to restrain them, but it is futile. He snorts, loud and unabashed, and then he’s laughing. 

And then they’re all laughing—Mike, and Ben, and Bev, and Bill—but Richie is just watching Eddie, just looking, waiting for—

_ There it is. _

Eddie’s face pops back up, cheeks and nose flushed pink. His eyes glitter at Richie, and there is so much left to say, so much they didn’t get to discuss back in the sewer. There’s so much they _ did _ say, though, in the Deadlights, so many things he remembers and so many things he’s losing, like that was just a terrible, awful dream, slipping through his fingers. 

But Eddie smiles at him, and it’s fine that he’s slowly forgetting. He’d rather have this Eddie than any other, and he hopes the other one is happy, too, with the Richie he deserves. 

All they need is to get through this day, through the hospital visit and whatever comes after. He’ll become a nurse for all of them, he’ll guide them all back to perfect health, and they’ll all leave this place. _ All _of them, and there will be no reliving this again. Richie’s done it before. He knows it’s possible. He knows the future is just around the corner, waiting for him, and all the things he’s already done to get there tickle at his brain. 

He’s lived it, but he hasn’t. It’s different, but the same. 

The main thing is that it’s permanent. He can feel that in his bones.

He can also feel the pain in his lower back, shooting down to his knee, where it throbs and tingles and manifests. Where the fuck is this hospital?

Bev stumbles. Richie catches her. “Not that I’m not loving this walk, because I totally am, but I did not wear the right shoes for any of this and my socks are full of blood.” 

“I’d offer to carry you,” Richie says, “but my back probably won’t allow it.”

Mike stops, and they all stop with him. “Hop on, Marsh,” he says. “We’re almost there.”

Bev squeezes Richie’s hand again and walks on her heels, jumping onto Mike, and he gives her a piggyback ride the rest of the way to the hospital. It is another fifteen minutes. 

Richie ruminates as he walks alone, hands in his pockets, and tries to avoid staring directly at Eddie, who won’t look away from him.

* * *

They separate when they get to the hospital, after they all collectively stare up at it, bigger than they remember, with extra buildings and two new parking lots. Eddie says, in quiet disbelief, “What the _ fuck_,” and Richie goes, “Do you think they’ll remember you, wittle Eddie Kaspbwak?” 

“You’re lucky your back hurts and that Ben is a gentleman or else I’d kill you,” Eddie threatens. It is pitched low and sweet, on the edge of something else entirely. 

It makes Richie’s blood hum, makes Bill’s nose wrinkle, makes Ben blurt out, “Whatever this is, I don’t want to be involved.” 

Eddie presses his face to Ben’s neck. “I would never have you become an accessory to my murder. You are not invited.” 

“Thank god,” he says, and he cups the back of Eddie’s head, familiar and friendly and soft. 

“Kinky,” Richie says. 

Ben flips him off.

They pair up—Eddie and Ben go to the Emergency Room, where Eddie still frets about his lost wallet and ID and insurance card, and Mike and Bill head towards the cafeteria for much-needed cups of coffee, and Richie buys Bev a pair of comfy, faux-fur lined slippers in the gift shop before she ushers him off to the orthopedist. 

“When did this place get so fucking fancy?” Richie asks.

Bev tosses her boots and her socks, which were stained red at the bottoms, in the nearby trashcan. “Sometime after we all left, I imagine,” she answers. 

Once upon a time, the Derry Hospital was one building with about four floors. There was a general waiting room, the ER, and a floor of exam rooms where patients stayed overnight if they needed. More often than not, the staff sent everyone over to Bangor, where the medical teams were better skilled and the hospital there prepared for more than just the bad flus and walking pneumonias the kids got in Derry when the rainy season flooded the Kenduskeag. Nothing really _ bad _ happened here to warrant such an expansion; there was no need for a trauma surgery department in Derry when kids were just _ dying _ or going missing. 

But there it all is, as if Derry, Maine was finally preparing itself for all the shit they’ve ignored for years—decades too late, though. Richie can still hear It crying out for them as It died, sniveling like a child, saying, _ You’re all grown up now_, because It had never seen kids any older than eighteen, having devoured them whole. It never understood the concept of aging. 

“Sit,” Bev orders, shoving a pillow behind him. “Is that comfortable?” 

“I guess,” says Richie, shifting a little bit to apply pressure to the cushion. To keep his spine straight.

“’Kay, I’ll be right back.” Bev disappears, slippers thudding against the floor. They may be a little bit too big, or maybe she’s just not putting all of her weight down on her toes, he’s not sure, but she’s walking kind of funny. She should get her feet checked out. He hears her say, “Hi,” and then, “No, we don’t have an appointment, we’re new patients, are you terribly busy?” 

He watches her, leaning against the counter, and she fuckin’ _ transforms_. Makes them look at her, entrances them with her little laugh and her bashful grin and peers at name tags to address them personally, like they are friends. The medical assistants see right past the grime and the gunk, the dirt, the blood, the stink, and give her everything she wants. It’s just like that one time, in the pharmacy, when Eddie and Stan and Bill stole all that gauze, tape, and antiseptic to patch up Ben. 

Richie wonders if there’s not a little bit of magic left, just making sure the six of them get out of here in one piece. Wonders if it’s not the town that’s magical, but them. 

Bev comes back with a clipboard, a pen, and a bunch of papers. “The doctor can see you in a half hour,” she tells him. “Someone cancelled last minute.” 

“Convenient,” Richie says. He clicks the pen. 

“Right?” Bev curls her legs beneath her, becomes small in the seat beside him. Her head rests on his shoulder. “Very lucky.”

_ Magical_, Richie thinks again, but doesn’t say out loud. Bev understands a lot of things, and she’ll understand this, but he’s not sure he’s ready to divulge all that. The Deadlights, and Stan, and the turtle, _ Georgie_. All the versions of Eddie he could’ve met, all the worlds he _ dies _in. It makes sense to him, because he believes in it, and it will make sense to Bev, and everyone else if he just explains it well enough—

Or because their entire lives have been shaped and molded by fucking magic. It’s not as crazy as he thinks.

_ Last Name, Middle Initial, First Name. _

Tozier, Doesn’t Matter, Richard

_ Social Security, D.O.B., Gender _

He’ll come back to that, 03/07/1976, Male 

Bev shifts, top of her head brushing against his cheek. She’s warm, and real, and present, which reminds him that Eddie is warm, and real, and present, somewhere else in this maze of a building, and he thinks about him. Thinks about how he doesn’t like that they’re separated, he never has, and thinks that he’d much rather be ignoring the pain in his entire body and sitting with him. 

_ Street Address, City, State, Zip Code _

It’s mechanical, the way he fills out his address, scrawling Los Angeles, California. His handwriting is atrocious, too big and too slanted to fit on the one line. The words run into each other, barely legible, and he blanks on his zip, consumed with the smell of Bev’s hair, somehow sweet as if she recently showered and dank as if she just emerged from Neibolt. It’s a conundrum. He can’t pick one or the other. 

That fucking house. That _ goddamn fucking _ house, now swallowed up whole by the evil that supported it, in pieces. Gone, like It, like Pennywise, like all of their childhood fears. The magic there, it was horrifying and malevolent, but like all things, there was something to counteract it. Where there is bad, there is good; that is always the case. 

Sometimes it feels like the bad is too strong for the good to overpower it, but all it takes is a spark.

And it is the good magic that saved them in the end, that gave Richie all of these chances, that brought Stan back to him, that saved Eddie’s life. The magic gave him what he’d never been allowed to have, what he’d been afraid to have. Showed him that it was—it _ is_—possible, that it’s in his future, that there _ is _ a future.

Eddie has two scars, fully healed, stitched back together by little hands and Richie’s sheer belief in Eddie and Eddie’s belief in medical practices, honed by years and years of doctors’ visits. Eddie has a stab wound in his cheek, covered up with a bandage, and Eddie has a headlamp that makes him look like an idiot, and Eddie has a _ future_.

_ Social Security Number _

He doesn’t even have to have a future with Richie. It doesn’t matter what he does with that future. What matters is he _ has one_. 

There are an infinite number of potential timelines. There are multiverses, and doppelgängers, and convergence points, and aliens, probably, and every other thing that science fiction books and movies try to sell. There are all of these things, and they exist, and there are only a handful of them where Eddie lives. 

This should not have been one of them, but Richie always had a hard time accepting _ no _ as an answer. 

_ Social Security Number _

Fuck, Richie does not want to be here. Let his back break in two, let his kneecaps fall off, let his nerve endings splinter, let his muscles tear. He wants to be where Eddie is, has always wanted to be where Eddie is, even when he hadn’t known who Eddie was. Always searching, always looking, always coming up short. 

He has to fill out this goddamn paperwork, and probably get a bunch of x-rays, and talk to a doctor, and explain what the fuck happened to him, but all he wants to do is take Eddie’s shirt off. 

_ Social Security Number _

And not even in a sexy way, right? Like, sure he can imagine himself pulling his dumb, little polo off and licking the grooves of his abs or pressing hickeys into the skin from his neck down, right to his hips, where his pants sit. He can see all that and more, but that’s not what he wants to do. It’s _ not_. 

Okay, it is, _ but_. 

He wants to take his shirt off, and stare at Eddie’s chest, and commit the sight of that healed scar to memory, so when he closes his eyes, it’s burned into his retinas, into his eyelids. He wants to stare at that thing, wants to see it from the back, wants to touch it and hold it, feel the new flesh, the raised skin, and he wants to think, for some godawful reason, about how close he was to losing him.

Because it was so goddamn close. You know that. He knows that. 

It could’ve been bad. It could’ve—he could’ve—Richie’d be—

_ Social Security Number _

God, he feels like one of those women in, like—is it Jane Austen novels? He doesn’t know, but he’s _ pining_, and he’s yearning, and he’s not serving the plot for any good reason. He’s just there, to be compared to everyone else, to the main girl, who wants more than to be married off to a rich suitor. 

But Richie’d get married off to a rich suitor, he thinks. 

_ Social Security Number _

He’d do it, if it were Eddie. He’d be a goddamn trophy husband. 

Whatever Eddie wants. 

_ Social Security Number _

He wonders if he’d look good in a petticoat.

A bonnet, maybe? 

_ Social Security Number _

Bev’s hand comes slowly down from his elbow, holds his hand in place, which he realizes now is shaking. “Do you know your social?” she asks.

“Normally,” he answers. “But right now…” He trails off, catches his bottom lip between his teeth, worries at it. And there it is, the evidence that Eddie loves him in another world, splitting again. He tastes the tang of blood, presses his tongue to it. 

How often has his lip bled like this? How does time work now that he’s here? How does he have this? How is it possible for him to remember the feel of Eddie’s hands on his face, of the taste of his desperation? 

His head spins. 

He presses the pen into Bev’s waiting hand and she grips it, easing the clipboard out of his lap. Rests it on her knees. 

Richie breathes slowly in, slowly out, urges his hands to chill out, asks his heart to go back where it belongs, in his chest. It’s currently in his torn lip, in his throat, dropping into his stomach, breaking into pieces. It’s somewhere else in this hospital, far away from him, getting checked out in the ER. 

Bev says, “He’s going to be okay, you know.” 

Richie says, “Who?” 

“Eddie,” she tells him. “He’s fine. You’ll see. He’s going to live forever, I’m convinced.” 

He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m sorry.” 

“For what?” she asks. “Gimme your wallet.” 

It takes him a moment of fumbling to get it, wet and slimy, and he tries to dry it off on his shirt, which is stained beyond repair. Richie looks at it, at the red and the brown and the black that cakes the fabric. Runs his finger along it. Remembers how it felt to know what to do but not accomplish it anyway. Remembers the leg that went right through Eddie, knows the exact spot, knows in another world ribs crack and splinter, puncture his lung, stop his heart immediately. 

He doesn’t know how the magic worked, how it healed all that was already broken, but he knows it did. Knows with every fact Eddie knew about sucking chest wounds, it got repaired. 

For all he knows, it wasn’t even a sucking chest wound, but they decided it was. They believed it was. And so the magic healed it. 

Bev makes a face when Richie gives her his wallet and it’s funny enough to make him laugh, a short burst of a sound. She flips it open, rifles through his various cards, and finds not only his health insurance card but his social, which he apparently had the foresight to store in there. 

“I’m just,” he starts, watching her fill in all the blanks. “How’d I die in the Deadlights? What’d you see?” 

Her handwriting is neater than his. Much nicer. 

“What’d _ you _ see?” she asks.

“Eddie,” he says simply. 

“How is the pain in your back? Be specific.” She circles something on the page. “Overdose. In a dressing room.” 

Richie’s stomach tightens. “Feels like I fell on it, which I did,” he tells her. “I’ve never done drugs like that. I tried some in college once, but it made me feel more scatterbrained than usual.” 

“What was it?” Bev asks. “I said be specific. Try again.” 

“Coke,” he says. “It throbs.” Now that he’s talking about it, he feels it all over again: the jarring pull of the Deadlights, hanging in midair, and then the drop, quick and slow all at once, colliding with the ground. “I feel it in my left knee too. It’s sore. There’s this sharp, recurring pain, but it’s contained. It doesn’t feel broken.”

“Where is the pain mainly?” 

“Lower back,” he says. “Tramp stamp area. Write that down.” 

“Absolutely not.” Bev writes his answer down, mentions that his knee hurts too, and hums as she reads the next bit. Richie is overwhelmed by the wave of affection he feels for her, who he hasn’t seen in so long, much longer than everyone else. Here she is, patiently filling out his paperwork like she does this all the time. 

He loves her.

“I wouldn’t kill myself like that,” Richie says. “I wouldn’t kill myself period. If I die, it’s—I didn’t do it.” He pauses, considering his next sentence, and Bev writes his name at the top of the page, along with his birthday. “The Deadlights were immersive for me. It felt real, like I was living there.”

“I was a bystander,” Bev says. “Would you say you drink rarely, sometimes, often, or daily?” 

Richie could really use a drink right about now. “Often.” 

She checks that off, checks _ none _ for _ tobacco use_, and _ none _ for _ drug usage_. “It was like I was watching a movie or something. I couldn’t interfere, but I couldn’t leave either. I just saw us all die, over and over. Me, drowning in blood. Ben, buried alive, beneath his own building structure. Bill, killing himself, a rope in a hotel room. You, overdosing. Eddie—” Her jaw clicks as it snaps shut.

“What? How?” 

Bev asks about his daily health. Reads off things like _ asthma _ and _ chronic headaches _ and he says no to all of them. Says, “_Bev_.” 

“Car accident,” she says, “or from one of the diseases he always frets about.” 

“There were multiple?” 

“Yes. For all of us, except Stan. Stan’s was always the same.” 

Richie gazes at her profile, at the tiny furrow in her brow as she reads the paperwork. She taps the pen to her bottom lip. It is too casual, too forced. “I spent the entire time I was there not realizing I was there.” 

“You were in them for five minutes tops,” says Bev. “Eddie threw that iron spike into Its mouth almost immediately.” 

_ This kills monsters if you believe it does. _

“Five minutes, five days,” Richie says. “Stan was there. He tried to get me out. He tried to tell me what to do to save Eddie. Timelines, he said. In almost all of them, Eddie dies. You saw all those deaths because there are so many worlds where we exist.” 

“That can’t be right,” Bev disagrees. She reads the HIPAA agreement, adds her name and Eddie’s as people allowed to receive his medical information. She checks her phone for Eddie’s number. Jots it down, then adds hers. Says, “Tom doesn’t know about this phone number.” 

Says, “I didn’t see Eddie get stabbed in any of the Deadlights dreams. That was never how he died.” 

“Maybe you weren’t supposed to see the real ways we die,” Richie suggests. He plays with his fingernails, pulls at a hangnail. “It tortures. Maybe It always wanted to remind you that you could lose us. Wanted to show you how.”

“Maybe,” Bev agrees. “I don’t really want to get into Its headspace, so we’ll go with that. Sign all of these.” 

Richie does, his signature big and flashy, entirely illegible. His _ R _ is huge, his _ T _ is loopy; if you didn’t know him, you’d never be able to figure out what his name is. 

“The magic saved him,” he says. He dates each signature, has to check Bev’s phone for it. He has no idea when he is. “I called for Stan upstairs, and Georgie came, and Maturin, the turtle god, and they reminded me how strong believing can be, and… and they saved Eddie.” 

He waits for her to tell him he’s crazy though he knows she won’t. She takes out his debit card, gives him back his wallet, and makes to stand. “That sounds about right,” she murmurs. “He’ll be okay. The worst is over, Richie. All that’s left is happiness.” 

She says it like it’s easily attainable, like he even knows what that means. What happiness _ is_. 

Bev messes with his hair before she leaves, traipsing back up to the desk. She smiles, big and fake and pretty, and hands over the paperwork. They make a copy of Richie’s insurance, swipe his Mastercard to pay. It takes no time at all. Bev settles back next to him. 

“Your copay is seventy dollars,” she says. 

“I avoid going to the doctor for that particular reason,” he admits. “Good insurance, shitty prices.” 

Bev nods, then asks, “You said Stan was there?” 

“In the Deadlights, in the Neibolt house,” Richie says. “He never left us. I never should have implied he did, back at the Chinese place. Stan doesn’t just abandon his friends.” He swallows roughly, rubs his palms together. “You think we could’ve defeated It without him? It always had to be the seven of us.”

“We were special together,” she agrees. “I’m glad for it, did you know? It seems ridiculous to be, considering it all, but meeting you guys—that was the best thing to ever happen to me.” 

“Aw, Bevvie,” Richie coos. 

She slaps at him. He pretends to be wounded. “It’s not often you meet men as good as you guys,” she says, quiet. The sound makes goosebumps erupt on Richie’s skin; she is raw, and vulnerable, and completely, heartbreakingly honest. “I only knew you for a few months, but I knew. I trust you. I feel safe with you. You let me be myself and you do not judge me for what I can’t be. You don’t stop me from being anything other than Bev.” 

“Why’d we want you to be anyone else?” he asks. He looks at her skin, at the yellowing bruises on her wrists, the torn nails on her hands. He remembers black and blues when they were younger, on her face, at her throat. Some men are afraid of strong women, so they find weakness and capitalize on it. Those men do not deserve to know Beverly Marsh. “You’ve always been more than enough. I couldn’t have learned all those yo-yo tricks from anyone else.” 

Bev’s smile is wobbly when she directs it at him. Richie doesn’t know if she wants him to pretend she’s not about to cry, but he knows she’s never shied away from tears. Never saw them as pathetic, like many people do. Like he used to, before this. So he buries his hand in her hair and gently guides her towards him, holds her to his side. He doesn’t know what she’s been through. Doesn’t want to make light of it, or stir up anything.

He sits, and he holds her, and he waits. 

“Those horror movies you took me and Ben to,” she says, “that was my first ever date. Did you know that?” 

“No,” says Richie. “It was mine, too, and I took _ two _ people. Can’t believe everyone thought I was lame when I was bagging the cutest kids at school.” 

“Eddie wasn’t there,” Bev teases. 

“Eddie’s cute and all, but do you _ remember _ Ben? Those _ cheeks_, Bev!” 

She laughs. “Yeah, those cheeks,” she agrees. “He’s still got ‘em, you know, have you seen?” 

“Haystack isn’t smiling at me as much as he’s smiling at you,” Richie says. “But you’re right, under all that rugged handsomeness, he’s still the same cutie he’s always been. You think he still listens to New Kids on the Block?” 

“Oh, I hope so.” She sighs a little. “I like to think we’re still the same as we were when we first met. Just a little bit.” 

Richie leans down to kiss the crown of her head, presses his cheek to her flaming hair. “She’s still in there, Bev,” he tells her. “You just gotta let her out.” 

They call Richie’s name. She follows him to the back, fingers twisted loosely in his. 

* * *

The doctors prod and poke at his knee, his back. He has to walk on his toes and then his heels, stretch himself out like he’s doing yoga. He twists his head this way and that, checking out his neck, and the doctor’s hand is cold as it follows the line of his spine. 

When they ask what happened, he looks at Bev, who nods, and says, “Fell off the roof.” It doesn’t explain the rest of him, the damp, mustiness, the dirt, the grime, the blood all over. It’s not even _ his_, but he can’t tell them that. He won’t.

It apparently does not matter, though, because like everything else in this place, it gets ignored. 

He goes for x-rays. Bev stays in the room, flipping through a copy of _ People_. 

When he comes back, back smarting more than it did before, she hops up on to the examination table next to him. Points to a blurb, like three sentences, next to a picture of him. Asks, “What the fuck is this?” 

Richie reads it, looks at himself, bites down on his thumbnail. “This is old.”

“But what is it?” 

“Beats me,” he says. “I said maybe two words to Amy Adams and then everyone decided there was something going on between us because she laughed at something I said. Maybe it was more than two words. Two sentences.”

“Huh,” Bev muses. “Sorry that didn’t work out.” 

“She’s married,” Richie says. “She’s got a kid.” 

“What a scandal that would’ve been,” Bev replies. She runs her finger along his printed arm, taps it. “You don’t look awful here.” 

“Thanks,” he says. “I think.” 

Her tongue darts out to lap at her lip. “You should let me style you,” she proposes, and then the doctor comes back in with the films. 

It’s a whirlwind of information, of names of muscles and bones he’ll never remember, which is why Richie hates the doctor. Stuff gets thrown at him and he has to try to absorb it all or else he’s lost, unable to fix himself. This doctor, at least, is slow and patient, and when he says something, he waits for Richie to acknowledge that he understands.

Nothing is broken, see, your back is all in one piece, see, but there is some swelling right there, do you see, in the muscle at the small of your back. It’s a back contusion, a bruise. Easily treatable. Take extra care to rest, do not participate in strenuous activities, do not do any heavy lifting. 

He bites back on an Eddie joke—now is not the time, not when he’s not here—but it still circulates in his head. He can easily say, _ Guess I can’t fuck your mom, Eds_, which translates to the honest truth of it: _ guess I can’t fuck _ you_, Eds_. It’s not even funny, it’s kind of sad, and the only way he’d get anything out of it is if Eddie’s in the room when he says it. He can picture him now, furrowed brow, red cheeks, all angry. 

Bev would laugh, though, if he said it. She thinks he’s funny. 

But it’s not. He’s not. He doesn’t know if that’s what Eddie wants.

(_Like I love you different from the others. Like I’m in love with you._)

Richie chews on his cheek, nods to the doctor. Eddie might have just said that because he thought he was dying. Maybe he didn’t mean it. Maybe he only said it because that’s what Richie wanted to hear.

(_When has Eddie ever said something he doesn’t mean? When has he ever done something because Richie wanted it?_)

Here is a prescription for codeine, take it if the pain is bad, and another for an anti-inflammatory. You can fill them up downstairs. You his wife? 

Bev shakes her head. Says, _ Friend. _

Richie thinks, _ Best friend_.

Keep an eye on him, if the pain gets worse we can do another x-ray. Maybe an MRI to really get into the muscle. We could’ve missed something, but I’m not sure we did. Looks like a standard contusion. You’re real lucky you didn’t break anything, Mr. Tozier, back fractures are a nasty business. Good to meet you. The girls can help you out front if you have any questions.

Richie Googles the side effects of his medications. Exits out of the browser, opens his contacts, hovers over Eddie’s name. He’s an idiot. No. He’ll see him later. He doesn’t have to _ text him_. He shoves his phone in his pocket. Follows Bev.

She takes the copy of _ People _ with her, tells him she’s going to cut out the part about him and hang it on her fridge. In the Deadlights, she’d made the pap photo of him and Eddie holding hands his contact picture.

Fuck, he wants to hold Eddie’s hand. 

Then Bev says, “Well, I don’t have a fridge, so I’ll put it in my wallet, like you’re my child.” 

Richie slings his arm over her shoulders, asks, “What’s the next move for you, Miss Marsh?” She goes with Ben in the Deadlights, but in the Deadlights, they all went to the Barrens afterwards, and she kissed him in the water. They didn’t do that here.

“Dunno,” she says. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead, you know? I’m taking it one day at a time.”

“Right,” he says. He fights the urge to check all the rooms they pass for Eddie and Ben, even though he knows they’re not on this side of the hospital. “You really wanna style me?” 

Bev fingers the shirt he feels like he’s been wearing for several decades, the shirt he is most certainly going to _ burn_, and laughs. “Whoever’s doing it now has no idea who you are,” she tells him. “They can do better. For one, they could make sure you never wear anything like this again.” 

“It was in my dressing room,” Richie defends. “Forgive me for not confirming the dress code when Mike called. I was busy _ puking_.”

She rolls her eyes, checks the sign on the wall, and makes a right towards the pharmacy. “I’ll style you, yeah,” she says. “You need a friend in your corner, it seems. There’s a way to wear what you like but make it look less like you’re still thirteen years old.” 

“Sounds like your next big move is heading to L.A.” 

“I’ll have to be where you are,” she says. “You mind if I crash on your couch for a bit? I don’t take up much space and literally have no belongings. You won’t even know I’m there.”

“I have a guest room,” Richie says automatically. “I have, like, two guest rooms.”

He’ll have to clean them, though; they’re stuffed with shit he doesn’t need, or have space for, or hasn’t had the time or energy to put in their proper place. There’s a foosball table in one of them. Maybe he’ll take it out, set it up in the living room. Now that he’s got a guest, he can finally work on his hand-eye coordination. 

But his guest is Beverly Perfect Aim Marsh, so maybe not.

“I don’t want to impose,” she says, the least imposing person he’s ever met. She goes to hand the pharmacist his prescriptions, but he wrestles them from her grip. She doesn’t have to do everything for him today. 

“You don’t take up much space and literally have no belongings,” he shoots back at her. “How can you be imposing when you are the size of a baby deer?” 

Bev hip-checks him. “Save that for Eddie,” she says. “I won’t get as riled as he will, which is a bunch of bullshit, if you ask me. He loves how tall you are in comparison to him.” 

Richie’s cheeks heat up—he loves the height difference, too—and averts his gaze to the pharmacist, who tells him it’ll take a bit to fill these up.

Bev says, “Let’s get ice cream.”

* * *

He eats plain vanilla with rainbow sprinkles.

She gets pistachio with cookie dough bites.

The déjà vu is _ unreal_.

* * *

A group chat created by Mike tells Bev and Richie that he and Bill went back to the Townhouse, so that is where they end up, an hour later, with to go cups of butter pecan and strawberry ice cream for the two of them. 

They’re at the bar, Mike and Bill, they’re always at the bar, and they’re eating what looks like grilled cheese sandwiches. Where the hell did they get grilled cheese? 

Bev slides into the seat on Mike’s left. He rips apart his sandwich half, offers her the bigger piece. She takes it, squeezing his thumb, and chews. Her bites are small and deliberate; she eats like a hamster. 

Richie drops his bags between them, asks as casually as he can, “Are Ben and Eddie back yet?” and rounds to the other side of the bar to do something with his hands. He inspects the line of whiskey bottles, twisting them so their labels face forward. He does not think about how Eddie is partial to rum, how he claimed this particular one the other night, when Bev dropped that bombshell about her dreams. 

Bill’s mouth is full. “No. They went to the hospital in B-Buh-Bangor.” 

He and Mike do not seem concerned by this, but Richie’s stomach sinks, slow and steady, until he’s standing in it. Bev frowns over Mike, at Bill, still chewing.

“Why?” Richie’s holding the neck of the rum bottle so tight his knuckles turn white.

“They’ve got a better cardiology department than Derry,” Mike says. “It’s award-winning or something. Their head cardiologist is, like, incredibly famous.” 

“Okay, but _ why_?” 

“I don’t know,” says Mike. “I think he’s been published a bunch of times. He did some groundbreaking work on heart valves a few years back, he’s the one you want to go to when you’ve got something wonky going on—”

“No, I don’t care about that,” interrupts Richie. “Why did Eddie go there?” 

“He got stabbed straight through the chest,” Mike says, “or did you forget?” 

Richie is still covered in Eddie’s blood, can see the world through the haze of red that’s embedded in the cracks in his lenses. Of course he remembers, Mike, what the _ fuck_, Richie’s the one that healed him. Richie’s the one he _ lived _ for.

“Yeah, but the magic stitched him up,” Richie replies. “He wasn’t having any trouble breathing. He’s fine. He’s fine, why would he go somewhere else?” 

Bev asks, “Did he tell them he got stabbed in the chest? We told the doctor Richie fell off the roof.” 

Bill shrugs. “Rich, if you’re gonna stand there, can you make me a drink?” 

“I don’t know what they told them,” Mike says to Bev. “I think they know better than to try to explain this to anyone. He probably wanted to get a standard checkup, to see if he’s healing the right way. You know Eddie, he already has an answer to every question and probably knows a different, more efficient way to go about caring for the scars. He’ll be meticulous about it, especially since no one knows what happened or how.”

“The magic,” Richie provides. He decides Bill will have what he’s holding, the rum, and makes a mess when he tries to fill a glass with Coke—or is this Pepsi?

Mike nods. “Yeah, you said, but no one knows what it _ did_, you know? Eddie wants to make sure he’s healed internally, too, not just stitched up. Internal injuries are bad, man, they can do so much damage if they’re not taken care of properly. Whatever happened back there, it saved his life, for sure, but did it save it indefinitely? Does he need to undergo real surgery? It’s better to be safe than to find out too late he’s actually been dying this whole time.” 

Richie blinks at him, grinds his teeth, thinks _ actually been dying this whole time_, and is glad he’s given Bill his drink already. His hands shake, like they did in the waiting room earlier, and he feels kind of like he’s going to throw up. _ Actually been dying this whole time_. Jesus. _ Actually been dying this whole time_. 

Fuck it.

He puts the rum bottle to his lips and chugs. It burns all the way down, a steady fire growing in his belly, and Richie hates it, but he doesn’t stop. One, two, three, four, five shots down the hatch, and he only lets go when he realizes he has to breathe. 

He hadn’t thought of any of that. It hadn’t crossed his mind, the possibility of the magic not lasting, not holding. The magic made them all who they are today, successful, thriving, if not unhappy. It has to stay. _ It has to_. How can it not? How can it spread all across the country, make Bill a famous writer, or Bev a household name, or Richie a sold-out comedian? Stan and Eddie were living large in New York and Atlanta, the best at their jobs, despite being mundane. If the magic can do that, it has to keep Eddie alive.

There cannot be loopholes. There cannot be fine print he’d neglected to read. Stan and Georgie wouldn’t do that to him. Stan is his best friend and Georgie is a _ kid_.

Eddie is alive (Eddie’s blood is on his shirt), Eddie is alive (Eddie’s blood is stuck under his fingernails), Eddie is alive (Eddie is a crazy person who loves going to the doctor), Eddie is alive (Eddie is probably that guy who has his doctor’s number so he can text him his symptoms), Eddie is alive (Eddie is _ alive_).

Bev hisses, “Why would you _ say _that?” 

“It’s the truth,” Mike says. “Magic can backfire.”

“Yeah,” Bev agrees, “but why would you say that _ out loud_? Why would you say that _ in front of him_?” 

“This magic won’t do that,” Richie croaks. His mouth is dry. He swigs the rum again. “It can’t. This doesn’t backfire. Stan wouldn’t do me like that. Georgie would never lead me astray.” 

Bill wipes his mouth, says, “Georgie was six.” 

“And he never led me astray,” Richie replies. “Good kid. Reliable. He’d never allow this.” 

“Juh-Juh-Juh-Georgie was _ six_,” Bill repeats, cheeks heating up in that way they did when he struggled over a word.

Richie doesn’t care that he’s upsetting him, Richie cares that _ they’re _ upsetting _ him_, and explodes, “And he’d never allow this! He’s been six for twenty-seven fucking years, Bill, you don’t think he’s learned a thing or two by now? He’s not a kid. He’d never be part of something that didn’t work, that didn’t stick. He didn’t _ fade away _ so Eddie could _ die _ anyway. He—he—he—” 

His little hands, and his raincoat, and _ turtles are reptiles_, and _ tell Bill I don’t blame him_. He was six years old, but he also wasn’t. He knew so much. He was so much. Together, with Stan— 

Eddie is _ alive_. He will _ stay _ alive. 

Richie drinks again. The rum goes down like water. He blinks, looks away from Bill, who holds his gaze with an intensity he dislikes, and fights against the stinging in his eyes.

(_Eddie, whimpering, blood pouring out of his mouth, chest opening up_.)

“Honey,” Bev says. “Do you want me to check on Ben, see how they’re doing?” 

(_Eddie, eyes glazed over, stuck on Richie, but not seeing._)

“You want me to make you a grilled cheese?” Mike asks. “There’s a fully stocked kitchen back there.” 

(_Eddie, gurgling over something that should be “I love you,” but sounds like “I fucked your mom.”_)

Richie shakes his head rapidly. “Thanks, but no.” He puts the rum down in front of Bill in case he wants any more, a half-assed peace offering, uncaps his codeine, and dry swallows it. 

Bill grabs the pill bottle, reads the label, says, “I don’t think you’re supposed to mix this with alcohol.” 

“Oh, well, my back hurts,” Richie says. “What’s the worst that could happen? I could throw up, but that’s all I ever seem to do, so I’m not too concerned about it. I’m going to bed.” 

Mike checks his watch. “It’s three thirty.” 

“And we’ve been up for two days straight,” Richie points out. “I am a dead man walking. How you two are mindlessly eating lunch is astounding to me.” 

“Second wind or whatever,” Mike says. More like a third or fourth, really, given everything, but Richie keeps his mouth shut. His anxiety has sky-rocketed and he doesn’t need to get into a fight with them all, but who knows, maybe Bill will punch him in the face again. It works wonders when Eddie’s not there to rein him in. “I’ll crash soon. Hoping to see the others come back before I do.” 

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Richie salutes him, slaps Bill on the shoulder harder than necessary, hears Mike ask Bev if she wants a sandwich, and climbs the stairs up to the second floor. The quiet freaks him out a bit, but he’s too loose-limbed and nervous to care about being alone.

It doesn’t help that this place is fucking ancient, all dark finishes and old, oriental rugs that curl at the edges, yellowed from the sun. He thinks maybe it hasn’t been renovated since, like, the late eighteen hundreds (that’s a stretch, Richie), but these staircases give him _ The Haunting of Hill House _ vibes, shadowy and gothic, leading to who knows where. The lamps hung to the walls provide little to no light, and the windows are not very large, so despite it being mid-afternoon, it feels like late night, early morning. The witching hour or some shit.

Richie stares at a shadow down the hall, waits for something to move in it. Nothing does. 

He unlocks his door, and he uses an honest to god metal key, like this is someone’s _ house _ and not a poorly-advertised hotel. Yelp gave it three and a half stars, and that’s fucking generous, given the lack of employees, survellience equipment, and its potential for _ murder_. 

He shoulders his way inside, trying to remember how he got this key in the first place, he didn’t even check in, and stands in the middle, surveying the place. It’s clean, kind of musty, and it looks just like the one in the other timeline, just shifted to a different side. This is the first time he’s been in this hotel room, but the memories of the other one flood him.

It feels like he’s been here for a lifetime, but it’s been about two days. Seven, if you want to count his experiences in the Deadlights. He doesn’t.

(_Doesn’t mean I’m not in love with you in every universe_.)

Richie enters the bathroom, locks the window, you know, just in case, and washes his hands with water so hot it scalds his skin. He splashes it on his face, scrubs at the remains of Eddie’s blood, and tries to clean off his glasses. They’re fucked—he can’t get them in any sort of working order, just smearing the shit further into the lenses. He sighs, hopes he has another pair in his duffle, and breaks them in half. It’s not like he wants a reminder of any of this anyway. They end up in the trash.

Bev has the keys to his car, where all his shit is, so he has nothing to change into. Whatever. He doesn’t care. This is fine. He kicks his shoes off, peels off his socks, and balls his shirt up, throwing it in the corner. He never wants to see that thing again, Jesus fuck. He hates it. 

He crawls into bed, burrows under the covers, and turns to face the window. It’s on the other side this time around, but there’s a tree there, too. He stares, the sunlight shining through the stupid curtains, and he stares, leaves rustling in the breeze, and he stares, waiting for a bird.

There is no bird.

There will never be another bird.

The thought sinks in his stomach like a pebble dropping to the bottom of a river. _ Clunk_. It’s a bittersweet thing.

He misses Stan, misses knowing he might be able to find him around, even in death. He knows he’ll see him around, like you do when people die, when you find them in the things they liked and the places they’ve been. When he passes a temple, he’ll remember him, thirteen and foaming at the mouth. _ I’m a loser and I always fucking will be. _ He’ll think of celebrating Rosh Hashanah and Passover at his house. He’ll remember him in parks, and in birds, and in the quarry, and in the comic book section of libraries and book stores. He’ll remember him when _ Africa _ by Toto plays, and he’ll see him in pressed collared shirts and puzzle pieces and math books and packs of kids riding their bikes. He’ll see his smile in the heat of the summer, and he’ll see him in glass Coke bottles, and he’ll see him as he always was: The best friend he could ever have. 

Stan is all around. He is everything and he is nothing and he lives in the part of Richie’s heart that will be broken beyond repair for as long as he lives. The part that belongs to him. He is in the memories Richie is slowly getting back, the inside jokes he’s remembering, the secret conversations and the unquestionable trust. And that’s the way it goes, doesn’t it, when you lose someone? They become the stories you tell, the stories you can’t truly remember as they happened. But what you do remember is the feeling of them, of the person, the place, and the moment. It’s strong, and it’s warm, and it fills you up. Something to treasure and cherish. 

But he’ll never get the chance to know him in adulthood. Never get the chance to call for him, to have him show up, like he always does, and help him sort through his shit. They won’t be able to laugh, or cry, or reread old comics and books, and make fun of each other. Stan’s gone now. He can feel it the same way he can feel the permanence of this world. He’s gone for good, and that’s fine, that’s great, he deserves to be free of this, but that doesn’t mean Richie is happy about it. 

Stan’s one last act of defiance was helping his friends, was looking It straight in the eye and saying, _ You can have me, but you don’t get to have them, too. _ He was so fucking afraid that day, when they were thirteen, when they forced him to Neibolt. He was so fucking _ scared_, and here he is, all these years later, the reason all of them got to leave the second time. 

It’s such a Stan thing to do, to come out of nowhere and rock Its shit like that. 

Richie looks out the window. He doesn’t want to be in the Deadlights, but he kind of wishes a bird would show up right now and stare at him. 

He falls asleep like that, eyes heavy from exhaustion or the mixture of codeine and rum, and when he dreams, it’s of flocks of warblers, their wings painted with all of Stan’s favorite colors. 

One of them even looks at him, right down to his soul. It blinks, tilts his head, fluffier than the rest. Richie says _ bye _ to it, says _ thank you_, says _ I miss you_. 

It caws. 

He never sees that bird again. 

* * *

The first time Richie wakes, he doesn’t remember it.

“Hey, Rich. Rich. Richie, hey. Wake up.” 

He shakes his head, shoves his face into his pillow, and ignores the sound. 

“Richie, c’mon, I have your pajamas. Your clothes are disgusting. Wake up.” 

“No,” he mumbles. 

“I won’t sleep in this bed with you if you don’t change.”

“’Kaywhateverbye,” Richie slurs. 

“Richie.” 

“_What_, Eddie?” he snaps. “Let me sleep. M’tired.” 

Eddie laughs at him, this low, soft sound, and it fills Richie up from the inside out. “I know you are, but you’ll be more comfortable in your pajamas.” 

Richie groans, eyes still shut, and pushes himself up. He raises his arms like he’s a kid, feels Eddie tug at the hem of his shirt, still laughing, and swaps it out for a cleaner, warmer top. He gets a pair of flannel bottoms and underwear thrown at his face and he stands, still half-asleep, to change into those too. He kicks his jeans to the side, gets back into bed, pulls the blankets up to his chin. 

He doesn’t feel the added weight of another body, so he opens an eye, curiously looking around for Eddie. 

He’s right there, on the other side of the mattress, wearing sweatpants. Richie’s duffle bag is thrown over his shoulder. He’s staring at him. Richie squints. He’s staring at him, eyes wide. He doesn’t know what that means, but he pats the bed, _ one, two_. 

“Get in.” 

“So bossy,” Eddie chides.

“Said you wouldn’t sleep in the bed if I didn’t change. I changed. Get in the bed.” 

“Alright.” 

Eddie drops the bag on the desk chair, turns off the lamp, and slides under the blankets. Richie kicks out to feel his foot, then shifts closer so Eddie’s body heat becomes his. He shoves his leg between Eddie’s, slides his hand under his shirt to touch his scar, and sags in relief when he feels it. 

He tugs the shirt up all the way, holds it in place, and presses his mouth to the skin there, peppers kisses on the scar, around the scar, and on one of Eddie’s nipples, just to hear his sharp intake of breath. Then he puts him back together, wraps both his arms around him, and says, “All good?” 

“All good,” Eddie confirms. His hand finds his hair, fingers working to untangle the knots there, slow and gentle. “Hey, Rich?” 

“Wassamatter?”

Eddie pauses, still petting his hair, decides, “Never mind. It can wait.” 

“Okay,” says Richie. “Love you.” 

Eddie presses a kiss to Richie’s hairline, says, “Love you too.” 

* * *

The second time Richie wakes, Eddie is asleep on top of him. 

Daylight filters in, strong and bright, the curtains weak against it, and it takes Richie a moment to register where he is, what he’s doing there, and that Eddie’s here. He doesn’t remember him showing up, doesn’t remember changing his clothes, but he can tell they’re different—warmer, less sticky.

But here he is: in Maine, in the Derry Townhouse, in his room for the first time. This is not the Deadlights, this is his world’s Eddie Kaspbrak, and he is currently got his entire body over Richie’s. He’s comfortable with him laying on him like this. Warm. Content. That thing he feels in his belly—he thinks it’s a lazy sort of happiness, the kind that creeps up on you when you least expect it. 

It reminds him of his mother’s homemade chocolate chip cookies, fresh from the oven on a rainy day. Of surprise gifts, the kinds that someone gives you because they were thinking of you, like the records Eddie would find at the thrift store, or the weird comics Stan would give him with little notes stuck on the panels he liked best. Of the times he and his father would play hooky from work and school and see every movie playing at the Aladdin back to back. Of finding extra tokens for the arcade in the pockets of his jeans and hoodies. Of beating Bill in bicycle races, and being the first to taste-test Ben’s cherry fudge brownies (that one just hit him out of nowhere; does he still know how to make those?), and helping Mike round up the chickens.

Small things. Tiny things that would mean nothing to someone else but filled Richie with a pleasure he’d never been able to replicate as an adult. 

Until now, that is.

Richie can’t see and he won’t be able to for a while, since he ditched his glasses in the bathroom, but he can most certainly feel, and he is not even a little bit ashamed for the path his hand takes. It slips under Eddie’s shirt to the middle of his back, where he comes into contact with the other scar, similar to the one on his chest, in both thickness and length. It is like it’s been there for weeks, not a day, like Eddie has been healed for longer than he has.

(_Magic, magic, magic_.)

And if he is here, not hooked up to any machines, not under, like, quarantine in the Bangor hospital, all the things beneath these two scars are in perfect working order. Eddie would never just—he would not do _ this _ if he were dying. 

The magic did not backfire, Michael Hanlon, fuck you very much. 

(But also: _ love you very much, in case your magic is reading minds._)

Eddie lets out a little sigh, waking up slow and steady, and kind of—he _ curls _ into Richie, snuffles, and moves so that he can press his face into his neck. Richie leaves his own hand where it is, splayed against his back, and feels a goddamn _ zing _ vibrate down his spine when Eddie presses his mouth to the space between his collarbones. It feels deliberate.

“Mornin’,” Eddie says. His nose is cold against Richie’s skin, which is starting to heat up. Flushing, like it used to when Eddie got too close. 

“Hi cutie,” Richie returns, voice weird, kind of gravelly. He coughs. 

“’M not ten, can’t be cute.” 

“Sorry, Eddie Spaghetti, you will always be cute,” Richie says. “I don’t make the rules, I just enforce ‘em.”

“As the sheriff of Stupid Town, I feel like you definitely make the rules.” 

“Oh my god, the _ sheriff _ of _ Stupid Town_,” Richie repeats. “First of all, _ what_, and second of all, do sheriffs make rules?” 

“I haven’t even been awake for five minutes and you’re already bein’ annoyin’.” Eddie yawns and his lips slide against Richie’s Adam’s apple. He can feel his _ teeth_. “Give me a bit and then I’ll be ready to banter.” 

“_Banter_,” Richie says, fighting the shiver that’s threatening to course down his spine. “So cute.”

Eddie sighs, but doesn’t fight him, and Richie knows this is because Eddie likes it when he calls him cute, and he likes it when he calls him Eds, and Spaghetti, and all the other nonsensical names he comes up with. Richie is Eddie’s favorite, always has been, and he honestly can’t say shit to him like _ don’t call me that _ when he’s already said _ I’ve been missing you my whole life _ in this timeline. 

Sappy, sappy, _ sappy_. Cute, cute, _ cute_. 

Eddie wakes fully and suddenly, and rolls over, off of Richie and onto his side, where he settles into a pillow and blinks up at him. “You’re comfortable,” he says, “but I should really never sleep like that again. My neck hurts.” 

Richie misses his warmth. “No one told you to.”

“You’re so clingy,” Eddie says. “I couldn’t move without you whining about it.” 

“Can’t be true, I don’t remember it,” Richie retorts. 

“You wouldn’t,” Eddie says. “Bev told me you decided to drink half a bottle of rum and then take your codeine. Did I hurt your back?” 

His back’s never been better, actually. “Your cuddling has cured me,” Richie says, “and listen, it’s been a very trying time for me. Don’t judge my life choices.” 

“You know better than that, Richie. What if it didn’t react well? What if you hurt yourself?” 

“I’d just throw up, no big deal.” 

“Richie, it _ is _ a big deal, you could’ve done much worse than throw up, and you were by yourself, asleep, what if you choked on your vomit, no one would know unt—” 

“I was scared, okay,” Richie replies, because there is nothing worse than getting lectured by Eddie, especially when he’s getting lectured about proper healthcare. 

Eddie frowns. “Scared about what?” 

Richie is glad he doesn’t have his glasses on so he can’t make out the facial expression Eddie is making. All he sees are eyebrows and a nose and the size of his eyes. He can see the lack of bandage on his cheek, too, and if he squints the skin there is most certainly pulled together. 

He takes a moment, cracks his jaw to the right. “You went to Bangor,” he admits. He doesn’t like being vulnerable like this, but what’s he got to lose, right? Eddie’s already holding all the pieces of his heart, even if he doesn’t know it yet. Richie has no control over it. It’s not even his anymore. He’s—all his cards are on the table. He’s got nothing left. “I had to find out from _ Bill_, and I didn’t know why you went, or if you weren’t okay, and I was scared I went through all of that to still lose you in the end.” 

“They thought I had an arrhythmia. The cardiology department is second to none in Bangor. It only made sense that I go there.” Eddie nudges Richie’s foot with his own, hooks his around Richie’s ankle. 

Richie is still staring at him like he’s never seen him before, like he’s a mirage. A hallucination created by his painkillers. Can he hallucinate on these? He doesn’t remember. Eddie says, “I don’t have one. I’m fine. Everything is—it’s where it’s supposed to be, and it’s doing what it’s supposed to do. The worst thing is that I have a couple of cracked ribs, but they’re already at the tail end of the healing process. It’s like I never got stabbed in the first place.” 

“D’you,” Richie starts, fighting the urge to count all the ribs he can touch, to stick his ear against his chest and listen. “Did you get a doctor’s note? Can I see that in writing?” 

“It’s in my suitcase, want me to go get it?”

“Wait, really?”

Eddie rolls his eyes. He can see that much. “Yeah,” he says. “Have you ever been to the doctor? It’s the middle of the week. I asked for medical clearance and a note excusing me from work.”

“You’re going back to work?”

“Fuck no.”

Richie’s breath comes out in a stutter, the relief he feels so overpowering he thinks he could faint from it, and then he’s laughing. It’s a hiccuped sound, the shadow of his usual cackle, but the motion scrunches up his face, makes Eddie blurry. 

_ Thank you, Stan, _ he thinks. _ Thank you, Georgie. Thank you, Maturin, the only god in the world. I’ll erect churches in your honor. Monuments. I’ll make a goddamn cult. I’ll become a religious man just for you. Your most devout follower. _

“You’re fine,” he breathes, and he’s looking right at him, but he can’t see, and his brain is cycling through all the gruesome ways he could have died. His heart hurts for the Richies in all those worlds that didn’t have a chance with him. “You’re—_fine_.” 

He doesn’t need a goddamn doctor’s note. He knows. He _ knows_. 

Eddie nods, though. “Where’d you go when you left me?” 

“The orthopedist,” says Richie.

“No, at Neibolt,” Eddie clarifies. “You left me with _ Bill_”—and he says it just like Richie did before, kind of offended—“he wouldn’t shut up about his movie, Richie. He told me every potential ending he could write, and they were _ all bad_. I wished for death just so I wouldn’t have to hear it anymore. How can someone be so talented and so awful all at once?” 

Richie snorts. They all love Bill, but they love shitting on him, too. It’s nice to know he’s got another flaw, that he’s not perfect. He’s human, too, like the rest of them: hotheaded and stubborn, talking with a stutter, and terrible at ending stories. 

“I went to save you,” he tells him. The words sound raw, ripped from his throat, like he’s some sort of tragic hero or something, when he’s really just selfish. There are the great heroes you read about in history books, in mythology, the people you look up to, and then there’s Richie Tozier, who is definitely not on par with those guys. He just wanted something so badly he said _ to hell with the rules _and made his own.

He tells Eddie about the timelines, and about Stan, and about how he’d almost been tricked by It in the Deadlights. He tells him about the magic, and his desperation, and how he fucked up, how it would’ve been his fault if he died here. He tells him about the turtle, and tells him more about Stan, and tells him about Georgie, which makes Eddie smile. He tells him that Richie wasn’t the only one who saved him, Eddie saved himself because he believed. Because he always believed. 

(_Know that wherever you are, I believe in you._)

He doesn’t tell him the finer details of the Deadlights. Doesn’t tell him how thoroughly convinced he’d been, how he’d loved and been loved in return. He doesn’t want to sway him into doing anything he doesn’t want to because that is not who Richie is. Not with Eddie. 

And Eddie is alive. They defied all odds, the two of them, and now they have this second chance. This chance that was not freely given, the chance Richie fought for. The chance he should’ve fought for all those years ago—why’d he just let him _ leave_? It matters little what Eddie wants to do with what he’s been given. Richie merely hopes he gets to go along for the ride.

“You did all that for me?” Eddie asks, voice small, self-conscious. Like he can’t believe anyone _ would_, like he doesn’t know Richie would move heaven and hell for him. 

“Yeah,” Richie says. “Of course.” 

“And you were afraid when I went to Bangor,” Eddie works out, “because you did all that and you weren’t sure if the magic held? Because Mike told you it could backfire? I’m gonna kill him.” 

“Mike knows more about magic than me. I’m convinced he majored in it and not Library Sciences,” Richie says. “Don’t hurt him. He was right. We don’t know what this means or what it does.” 

“It means that I’m _ here_, Richie,” Eddie argues. “It means that I was supposed to die, but I didn’t, and it means that you saved me.” He grabs Richie’s hand, holds on a little too tight, like he’s just figured out what that means. “It held. It’s going to hold. You believe it, and I believe it, and the x-rays and MRIs, and all the scans they had me take yesterday—they say I am alive, and I am well, and there is nothing wrong with me. _ I’m here_.” 

Here, physically in front of him.

Here, nestled in Richie’s heart.

Richie sniffs. “I wanna see you,” he says. 

“Where are your glasses?” 

“I threw them out,” Richie says. _ They were covered in your blood, it wouldn’t come out of the cracks, I couldn’t bear it_, he doesn’t say. 

“Do you have an extra pair?” 

“I think, I don’t know, they might be in my duffle, or I might be blind for the rest of this trip.” 

“Let me check.” Eddie gets up, moves around the bed, and Richie rolls onto his stomach, hiding his face in the pillow. 

The fabric grows wet as the tears start, and he coughs, hiding his sniffle. _ Here, here, here. It held. It’s going to hold. _ He is equal parts relieved and devastated, because there could have been a time—there _ are _ numerous—when Eddie never said that again. When Eddie never said _ anything_. 

Eddie’s hand is between his shoulder blades. He digs his knuckles into the knob of Richie’s neck, slides down his spine, to settle on his lower back. “I found them,” he says. “You sure your back is okay?” 

Richie nods. “Bruised,” he tells him. “Nothing I can’t handle.” 

“You want your glasses?” 

“Yeah, I—” Richie sits up, wipes at his eyes like he’s cleaning them of the sleep in the corners, not the tears Eddie will most likely see staining the pillowcase. He breathes, deep and certain, and takes them from Eddie, slides them up his nose.

And there he is.

There he is. 

_ There he is_. 

He drinks him in, greedily, like he is water and Richie is parched. Eddie blinks back at him, staring as much as Richie is, as Richie is cataloging and burning him to memory. The real Eddie. His Eddie, who is different from the Deadlights Eddie in so many tiny ways.

His Eddie, who has these dumb eyebrows, but the right one is shorter than the other, a split at the end, from a tussle in the Barrens when they were fifteen. He’d cut himself there, straight through the brow, had blinked away blood, and laughed instead of cringed when they cleaned him off with rubbing alcohol. 

His Eddie, whose nose is long and thin and kind of crooked. For all the times Richie’d been punched in the face, Eddie was too, and his nose hadn’t healed straight the last time it broke. It twists, right there, in the middle. 

His Eddie, with the eyes—shit, the _ eyes_, brown and wide and big. Eddie’s still doe-eyed, even well into adulthood. He could conquer the world with these, could look at Richie _ once _ and he’d do anything. (He’s putty in his hands now.)

His Eddie, with freckles that litter his face, with skin that tans easily in the sun. Who doesn’t sunburn, who thrives in summer and sunshine and freedom. 

His Eddie, with the cheek, no longer covered by a dirty bandage, stained with his own blood. There are stitches there, white and invisible to the eye, but Richie is looking, he is always looking, and he can see where they tie off at the ends. 

_ His Eddie. _

“Hey,” Eddie says, “are you crying?” 

“No,” Richie says, then, “Yeah,” then, “I think,” and then nothing, because his throat is closing up, swollen with an emotion he cannot name or place.

He holds Eddie by the cheeks, careful not to jostle the cut here—face wounds are so easy to reopen—and keeps staring, keeps crying probably, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be ashamed of the tears.

“I just,” he starts. “I _ just_.” He clears his throat, lets himself fall into the oblivion of Eddie’s gaze. “I can’t believe you’re actually here. After everything that happened, I can’t believe this is where I get to be.”

There could be so many other settings, so many different scenarios—they all flash through Richie’s mind, grimmer and darker than the last. But _this—here—_is where he is. His heart is fucking singing. 

He watches the slow way Eddie pinkens. It is glorious, the way the flush spreads, the way it reminds Richie of summer and high school hallways, where Eddie’s finally figured out Richie’s jokes are just compliments hidden in armor. It travels down his neck, makes a home in his ears, but stays contained to his cheeks, a dusty rose. Richie loves it. It’s the prettiest color in the world. He wants to paint his house to complement it. 

Eddie swallows, Richie feels it beneath his fingers. He licks his lips, and Richie watches the movement before lifting his gaze to his eyes again, where the pupils are blown, hiding the brown from view. 

“Richie,” he says. 

“Eddie,” he returns. 

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Eddie tells him. “Say no if you don’t want me to, but say it fast.” 

“I could never say no to you, Eds,” Richie admits, his voice nothing but a breath. 

Eddie takes him by the back of the neck, pulls him close, and slants his mouth over his. Richie matches him, opening up under him, and feels like all his pieces are being put back together. It is like he’s being built again from the inside out, like the two of them are becoming one, everything Eddie is filling up the spaces where Richie is lacking. He is finding himself again in the wet cavern of Eddie’s mouth, in the spaces between his teeth, in the tongue that presses against his, in the little contented sound that’s pulled from Eddie’s throat. 

Richie’s breath hitches, and he pulls Eddie closer, like they can _ get _ any closer. He can feel the way Eddie’s heart races, stutters, and beats, intense, and hard, and alive, and all for Richie. 

Eddie’s hands come up to wipe at Richie’s cheeks, wet with his tears, dripping down from his shut eyes. It is the first time in a long time that happiness does not feel so out of reach. It is attainable. It is here, in the shape of Eddie’s body. 

“Crybaby,” Eddie whispers against his mouth. 

“Shut up,” Richie says. “It’s been a really rough forty-eight hours.” And that is the understatement of the century. 

“It’s been a really rough twenty years,” Eddie says back.

“Make up for it,” Richie whispers, and he’s being shoved onto the bed, Eddie climbing into his lap, straddling him, lifting his back and sliding a pillow beneath it, right where he aches. 

God, he loves him. 

And then he is being kissed again, so thoroughly, so completely, and he falls apart beneath him. Becomes nothing but Eddie’s plaything, lets him bite and lick and kiss where he wants, how he wants. 

Richie gasps, Eddie’s mouth moving steadily down his neck, and he gropes at him, tugs at the hem of his shirt. Eddie pulls away to take it off, yanking it over his head with one hand. Richie ignores the pain in his back, ignores the doctor’s orders to not do anything strenuous, and he shoots up so he is closer to his chest, so he can lick at the scar that’s saved Eddie’s life. 

Eddie wraps his legs around his waist, arms straight behind Richie’s head, palms pressed into the wall. Richie doesn’t want to bother the skin here, so he sucks a bruise into the area around it. He wants to cover him with hickeys like they’re sixteen years old, wants to lay claim to him right here. This is _ his_. This scar, it’s Richie’s, and he will love it until it’s a sliver of itself, until it is hardly noticeable. He will love it like he loves Eddie, like he’s never loved anything else in the entire world. 

He can feel the shudder that wracks through Eddie’s body in his cock, which twitches to life against his inner thigh, roused and interested despite the amount of crying he’s done so far. 

“D’you want to stop?” Richie asks, digging his teeth into the flesh of Eddie’s neck. He lets go and looks up at Eddie, who is already so wrecked Richie thinks he may just come from that sight alone. 

“Nuh-no,” Eddie says, and he takes his hands from the wall, shoves them beneath Richie, grips his ass, and _ heaves _ him up so they’re hip to hip, so he can feel him through his pajama pants, thick and already semi-hard. “Pants on or off?” he asks. “Hands? Mouths? What do you—” He hisses through his teeth, mouth snapping shut, when Richie bucks up, grinding into him. “—want? Whatdoyouwant?” 

Richie knocks at his jaw with a knuckle. “Remember to breathe, baby,” he says, and Eddie’s nostrils flare, his body tenses, and he’s kissing Richie, licking into him with a starved sort of urgency. 

“You like that?” Richie asks against the slide of their mouths. “You like it when I call you baby, Eds?” 

“Like whatever you call me,” he admits. “You didn’t answer me, so we’ll do what I want.” 

And Richie has no chance to prepare before Eddie is slipping his hand between them, beneath his pants, wrapping his fingers around him, holding him carefully, almost reverently, mapping him out with his fingertips.

“Holy shit,” Eddie blurts, and then he’s crawling off him, pulling Richie out of his pants, looking at him dead-on. Richie’s dick twitches under all the attention. “What the fuck.”

“What,” Richie says. 

“I thought I had just—Why are you so big?” 

“Whaddaya—I don’t know. It’s just what—I _ told _ you.” 

“All those dick jokes,” Eddie says. “We all always thought you were overcompensating.” 

“What the fuck, why would I _ lie _ about that?” Richie demands. “I wanted you to touch my dick, asshole, I wasn’t going to lie about it in front of you. What the—_fuck_.” 

Eddie leans down and kisses the tip. Sucks it straight into his mouth. Lets go with an obscene pop. He looks up at Richie, smiles, and says, “Tell me what else you wanted me to do.” 

“I used to,” Richie blurts, mind whirling, all his childhood fantasies blurring into one another. He can’t remember any of them in particular, just the overwhelming feeling of _ want_. He wanted Eddie at all times, and he wanted him panting for him, and he wanted to feel his mouth around him, and he wanted—

“I used to,” he repeats. 

Eddie, with that wild look in his eye, burning into his, shoving Richie against locked doors and his mattress, Richie’s mattress, never Eddie’s. Climbing on top of him, pulling him down roughly by the neck because he was _ stupid tall like a giraffe_, biting during wrestling matches so he could leave his mark, any mark. 

Eddie kissing him so hard in the fucking hammock, tangling themselves up in it, in each other. They both remembered that, back in the clubhouse, the way they didn’t fit there but they made do anyway. 

He used to imagine what it would feel like to be so utterly consumed by Eddie, to be full of him, to be as close as he could get _ and then closer_.

Richie licks his lips, thinks about saying that, about owning up to it, and brushes his finger against the stitches in Eddie’s face. “Wait,” he says. “Your cheek. Come back up here.” 

“My cheek is fine,” Eddie grumbles, but he moves anyway, nose to nose with him. 

Richie cranes his neck to kiss him and is pleasantly surprised when Eddie does not say anything about how gross that is, given where his mouth just was. 

“Did you mean it?” he asks him. 

Eddie lays his forearms against his chest, rests his chin there. “That your dick is big?” 

“No, you little…” Richie kicks his knee up. “In the sewer, I mean.”

“I told you I did,” Eddie says. “I did. I do. I meant everything I said there.” 

Richie asks, “It wasn’t because you were dying?”

“Right, because I was just willing to do whatever you wanted because I was _ dying_,” Eddie retorts. “And I wasn’t dying. I couldn’t. You wouldn’t let me. You made me promise I would live, and every time I thought I would—and it was _ a lot_, remember Bill was going through all of his endings, like, damn, I do not want to see that movie—I’d think about you. About how you’d kill me if I died, how you’d hate it. So I didn’t.” 

_ Magic_.

Richie presses his knuckle to his eye. “I don’t know what I’d do if you died,” he admits, another layer of his peeling off, showing him for who he really is, which is small, and soft, and scared. “I hope they’d let me forget this and all of you, if that happened, as shitty as it was the first time. I don’t want to know what I had and what I missed and what I’d never be able to keep. I think I’d die too.”

How many timelines are there where Richie just… _ gives up_? Where he lays down with Eddie and lets It get him, too, in the end? Where he fights Ben and Mike and Bill, refuses to part with him? Where Eddie’s dead eyes are the final straw, the breaking point? Maybe it’s all of them. Maybe Richie is so intrinsically intertwined in Eddie that life without him is meaningless. Maybe that’s why Stan fought so hard. Maybe the Losers fall apart, fractured even deeper with Eddie’s death.

“Don’t think about it,” Eddie says. “I’m not dying. I’m not dead. I meant what I said. I’m in love with you. Have been since we were, like, eleven.” 

“You know,” Richie starts, pulling his fingers through Eddie’s hair, “I used to love it when you got bruises when we were kids.” A truth for a truth, regardless of how embarrassing this is. “You’d let me kiss them.” 

Eddie smiles at him, all dimply and shy. “I used to make sure I’d get them,” he admits. “I loved that you did that. I believed they would heal differently.” 

“They did,” Richie says, and then, “God, we were so gay. No wonder I was getting beat up all the time.”

“You were fucking stupid,” Eddie tells him. “Don’t blame it all on your sexuality. You were an annoying little shit who let his mouth run off on him.” 

“They weren’t writing _ Richie Tozier is fucking stupid _ in bathroom stalls,” Richie says. “They were writing _ Richie Tozier sucks flaming_—”

“I know what they wrote,” Eddie interrupts. “I would scrub it off.”

“It was true,” Richie says. “Or I wanted it to be true. That’s what I wanted to do.” He sniffs. “With you, specifically.” 

The corner of Eddie’s mouth quirks. “I used to think about that,” he tells him, and Richie sucks in a breath. “I wondered how you would do it and what it would feel like and I fantasized about pulling your hair. I loved your hair when you grew it out and it was all curly and I wanted—” He slides his hand up, grabs a fistful, tugs.

Richie whines.

“You never gave up on me,” Eddie says, revving Richie up and veering straight into a different lane. “Not when we were kids, and not in the sewer. You told me I was brave, and you told me to believe I wouldn’t die so I did, and I didn’t, and I didn’t give up on you, either. I trusted you. I trust you.”

Richie is going to cry again, he’s sure of it.

“Did I mean it?” Eddie asks him on the breath of a scoff. “Of course I meant it. Of course I’m in love with you. I’m not in the business of not meaning the things I say. Every time I look at you, my heart fuckin’—it explodes or some shit, I don’t know. I watched one of your Netflix specials and then could never watch anything else you did because of that even though I wanted to. I had this… this irrationally huge crush on you and I didn’t know how to deal with it. But it wasn’t a crush, it was my body remembering that I’m in love with you, that I’d walk to the edge of the earth for you, that I’d do anything you asked because it meant I’d be doing it with you. I knew instinctively, but my mind was slow on the uptake.”

“Even after all this time?”

“Yeah,” says Eddie. “You’re it for me. Your dumb glasses and your stupid nose and this overbite—I’m attracted to all of it. You’ve literally ruined me for anyone else.”

It’s crazy that he’s doing this a second time, that Richie’s already had love confessions, and he’s still sensitive. Fraying. Ripping at the seams. He thinks he can listen to Eddie tell him he loves him every second of every day. He thinks his heart has burst from its chest and made itself at home in Eddie’s hands, with a little warning (_fragile_), but Eddie has always had a gentle touch.

“You’re really not going anywhere? I’m not going to wake up and you’re gone? This is it? I get to have you?”

“If you want me, you got me,” Eddie says.

“I want,” Richie blurts. “God, I want, I want, I want.”

“Good,” Eddie says, “because I currently have nowhere to live. My wife kicked me out when I told her I was in love with you.”

“You told your _ wife_—_when_?”

Eddie half-smiles. Richie wants to kiss it over and over. “Mike called and I remembered two things at the exact same time,” he explains, and this is the story they’ll tell at their wedding, when the Losers crowd them in what will end up being Eddie’s favorite bar in California. “One was that I grew up here and the other was that I’m in love with you. The rest of the memories that came back were white noise. I was aware of them, but they didn’t matter. What mattered was getting here, getting to you, because once I saw you, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere else. It feels like I’ve been wandering for years, but now I’m—”

“Home,” Richie finishes.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “Home.” 

Then, exasperated: “Oh my god, are you crying again?” 

“I am in touch with my emotions!” Richie wails, frantically wiping at his face. “Sue me.” 

“I don’t know why everyone always thought it was _ me _ that did all the crying,” Eddie complains, even as he whacks Richie’s hands out of the way and kisses his cheeks. “It was always so clearly you. I can’t believe the disrespect I’ve been facing.”

“Shut up,” Richie snaps, no heat. He curls his fingers around Eddie’s, nudges his face until he can slot his mouth over his, lazy and slow, unhurried. He pulls away, huffs a laugh against Eddie’s mouth as he tries to chase his own, and adds, “I’m in love with you, too, if it wasn’t obvious enough.” 

“I had no idea,” Eddie teases, but he shivers against him anyway, presses his mouth to his, deep and searching, like he’s still a little shocked by it. 

Richie squeezes his hands again, feels the lack of ring on Eddie’s finger, says, “You wanna know what else I used to fantasize about?” 

Eddie nods. 

He licks his lips, searches Eddie’s eyes, bright and wild, and says, “You fucking me.” 

“How?” Eddie asks.

Richie tells him the whole thing, or at least what he remembers of it. 

Eddie—beautiful, brave, _ alive _ Eddie—fulfills that fantasy.

It’s better than Richie could have imagined. 

* * *

Bill texts in the group, _ love that you guys got your shit together really I do but some of us don’t wanna hear it thanks. _

Bev goes, _ I do_, and then, _ carry on ;) _

_ BEVERLY_, says Bill. 

Mike sends, _ Ben and I are making a drinking game out of it come join. _

Ben sends the dancing woman emoji and _ I’m not doing well. _

Richie says, _ My back hurts_.

Bill, who they heard race down the stairs, replies back, _ That’s what you GET. _

Bev goes, _ no strenuous activity richard! _

_ Oops_, says Eddie. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as you can tell this timeline is vvv different from the other one which is why we all deserve another chapter for the domesticity of it all. thanks for coming to my tedtalk, see you next time.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hello turns out i have an incredibly hard time writing just Nice Things. this entire ending feels like a very intense fever dream i can't escape from and it's not even done. there's like 10,000+ more words to this, which has now turned into, like, Reddie ft. Friendship. please enjoy these snapshots of their lives post-Derry. there will be more next time because i love to suffer.

Things get done a bit differently this time around:

Bev calls her friend, Kay, and there’s a lot of high-pitched shrieking on the other end that isn’t as concerning as it is loud. There’s a whole lot of _Thank god_, and _Good for you_, and _I was so worried_, and _You sounded like you weren’t coming back_. And then there’s _Do you need money_, and _Don’t tell me where you are_, and _What do you need me to do? _And then there’s _We’ll destroy him, Beverly, we’ll do it, I know some people_, and then there is nothing but the kind of crying that comes from knowing you’ve made it, you did it, you’re _free_. Bev’s escaping more than just It when she says, _I’m fine, I did it, I’m not going back, I swear it._

When Bev swears something, she means it—whatever it takes. The Losers know, Derry knows, and Tom Rogan will learn.

* * *

Mike and Ben bounce ideas off of each other on what to do with Bowers’ body as if they’re trying to figure out what to do that weekend: the chalet or the Hamptons?

Eddie asks, aghast, “He’s still there? _You left him there_?” which reminds Richie he is a total murderer and makes him throw up right there in his hands.

Bev hands him a tissue, then another, then four. “We tell the police it was self-defense,” she suggests. “He was trying to kill Mike.”

“Right,” Bill says, “because the puh-puh-police in Derry have always been so fucking h-helpful.”

In the end, they decide they should all go back—it’s Mike’s _house_, for fuck’s sake, even though he and Bill have been having a never-ending slumber party in Bill’s room at the Townhouse. Eddie’s looked up efficient ways to get old blood out of a myriad of fabrics and woods, and Ben’s stolen bleach and rubber gloves from the closet of cleaning supplies, and what they find in the middle of the library—

Is not a crime scene, but kids doing their summer reading, and adults perusing the paper. There are summer workers restocking shelves and teens checking out books far too old for them. It is cleaner than Mike has ever seen it. The axe is back in its case. The floors are _spotless_.

The resignation letter Mike’s been fiddling with for half a year is dated two days ago and on the main desk. His signature is large and gleaming, an almost perfect replication if not for the curve of the _M_ and the line through the _H_.

“I didn’t do this,” he says.

“We didn’t clean that,” Bev replies.

“And Richie’s not rotting in a jail cell,” Eddie says.

There’s a yellow paper crane perched on the corner of the letter. Richie bats at Mike’s shoulder, leans forward, picks it up. He places it in Mike’s hand, goes, “Stan.”

Bill nods towards the display case closest to them, changing as school starts up again. It’s dedicated to the birds of Maine. “He hated being dirty almost much as Eddie did,” he says, no stutter, looking at warblers, doves, ruby-throated hummingbirds, plovers, and sandpipers.

“He believed everything had its proper place,” Richie says, someone who has spent three days speaking to him, relearning him. “He was never really scared of It like we were. He was scared because it didn’t make sense to him, because it didn’t make sense at all.” He touches the letter, where Stan’s handwriting bled through. “So he cleaned up.”

Bev has that far-off smile of someone remembering the same thing as the rest of them, a summer day, bloodied rags, and a messy bathroom only they could see. “He was good at cleaning up.”

Richie smiles, imagines Stan’s curly hair at one of those tables, frowning at his math textbook. “He was good at a lot of things.”

Mike keeps the crane.

* * *

First—

Richie reschedules his tour dates in Reno.

Then—

Richie cancels his tour dates in Reno.

After—

His manager calls and he’s got the perfect lie built up on his tongue, but he takes one look at Eddie, curled around Bev and Ben on the bed, watching a movie on Mike’s tablet, carefully propped against five cups of water on the nightstand, and he sees Bill in the corner, trying to convince Mike the main character in _Joanne_ is not a one-dimensional version of Bev.

The family emergency he was creating for his mother, who, bless her heart, has a clean bill of health, dies on his tongue. He replaces it: “I can’t do it anymore. It’s not—it’s not funny, it’s stale, it’s not _me_.”

Richie’s back fucking hurts where he’s sitting at the foot of the stairs, having moved out of the room, and it’s a half hour of back and forth and forth and back until he’s getting, “Fine. We’re refunding the dates, but the turnaround better be quick, Rich. Quick and _good_.”

Richie agrees, if only because he doesn't have the heart to tell him it won't be.

* * *

Bill rips through an entire thing of napkins, scribbling endings through the paper and practically onto the bar top before Ben is opening his laptop and handing it to him. He types away viciously, pages upon pages, and when he asks Eddie if he wants to check these endings out, Eddie says, “Absolutely _not_,” and flees.

Richie laughs so hard coffee goes up his nose. 

* * *

Ben suggests they all go back to the Barrens, and Richie probably shouldn’t participate because of his back, but to hell with that, right?

Bev is the first one in—she’s always the first one in—and she is a vision of red and black cannonballing into the green water below them. They watch her go, as they did all those years ago, and she emerges, hair plastered to her cheeks. She yells back up at them, “What, are you _chicken_?” and that’s it for them, a bunch of boys at heart, who hate that Bev’s beaten them to the punch.

Bill shoves Mike over the edge, and Mike grapples for his wrist and gets his elbow, pulling him with him, and they’re a flailing bunch of limbs as they tumble down. Bev’s laugh is a shrieking sort of thing, echoing off the rock and the trees.

Eddie goes to take Richie’s hand—he’s as touchy as Richie is these days, the years apart having had an incurable effect on them both—and as soon as he does, as soon as their fingers are laced, Ben’s snatching Richie’s glasses off his face and hip-checking them. They’re free-falling, and Richie is calling Ben every name under the sun, eyes squinted shut.

Above, Ben kicks off his boots, folds his flannel nicely atop them, and _dives_.

“Ten,” Bev says immediately, when he surfaces.

Mike says, “Nine point five.”

“Ten,” Bill agrees with Bev. “Excellent f-form.”

Richie, who can’t fucking see, gives him a five out of sheer spite.

He gets his glasses back, which is kind of Ben, and discovers Eddie is missing. He twists and spins, shielding his face from the sun, and finds him bent over a bunch of waterweeds, over, like, hydrilla, maybe. His shirt is slick to his back, tag sticking up at his neck, and he has his hand deep in the plant, reaching for—

“Hey, look,” he calls, turning around, palm open, “were there always turtles here?”

“I don’t remember there being anything but us here,” Mike says back, “but, sure, there are turtles in Maine.”

Eddie wades to them, thumb circled around the tiny thing. Its shell is bigger than the rest of it, legs and head hardly sticking out, and it is not even struggling in Eddie’s hand, content to remain there.

Richie looks at it, and it looks at him, and he feels like he’s being _seen_. He blurts, “Keep it. Name it Maturin.”

Bill snorts. “What kinda f-f-fucking name is _Maturin_?”

“Is this a bit?”

Eddie catches his gaze and grins, cheeks soft and hair golden as the sun shines behind him, and Richie sees his future in those eyes, played out scene by scene—and he tells them all about the Deadlights and Stan, about Georgie and the benevolent god Eddie is holding in his hand. No detail gets left out this time, and by the end, the sun has started its descent, and they’re all holding each other, six of them in warm water, grateful for each other and for all the opportunities they’ve been given.

They let him go in the end, the turtle, and it swims off, never to be seen again.

There is a quiet sort of contemplation there, between them all, which is only broken when Ben shoots up, places his hands on Bev’s shoulders, and dunks her under. She shrieks and kicks out, sending a wave of water straight into Bill’s face. Richie watches them as Bill splutters, trying to blink through it.

They do not kiss. He wonders when they will in this timeline.

* * *

Eddie commandeers Ben’s laptop, accidentally reads one of Bill’s endings, and then reads them all. Out loud, he says, “_No_,” with the air of a book critic, has Bill, and _only _Bill, make him drinks at the bar, and forces him to watch him delete all but two. The ones he leaves are not great, but he thinks Bill can work on them, maybe salvage them, and leaves little notes in the margins because he’s an annoying nitpick.

Bill is grateful for Google Docs, makes Eddie several different types of drinks with only rum—“I am not_ nineteen_, Bill, do _not_ mix alcohols on me”—and asks him what he’s doing when he catches Eddie’s initial Google search.

Eddie worries his bottom lip between his teeth, clicks on the first link, and says, “Something that—Richie said—it’s never too late to start over, right?”

Bill flips over two empty shot glasses, fills them, and toasts to new beginnings. “Let me know if you need he-help,” he says. “I’m good at research.”

* * *

Richie is about to knock on the doorframe of their—_RichieandEddie’s_—room when he catches himself. He leans against it instead, watching the furrow of Eddie's brow, the way the light caresses the left side of his face, like it knows just as much as Richie does how special he is.

_He’s so pretty_, he thinks, gaze roaming like it always does. Every morning, every afternoon, every night—every day they’ve been here, Richie looks, and he does not get tired of it. He doesn’t think he ever will.

He’s had that thought before, so close and yet so far away, and for the life of him he can’t believe he couldn’t figure out _that_ Eddie wasn’t _his_. Physical differences aside—and they’re small, now that Richie’s looking at this one—the Eddie here argues with him more, and he remembers the same things as him, doesn’t need any leading questions, and he hasn’t been as sappy as he’d been a few days before. It’s less _I’m in love with you_ and more _Have you ever heard of haircuts before? You look like a drowned rat. _This Eddie spikes all of his drinks, even his morning coffee, isn’t actually allergic to nuts, and still wears remarkably tiny shorts.

But he also pushes himself on his tiptoes to kiss Richie no matter what time of day, and he sleeps comfortably against Richie’s chest but sometimes likes to be the big spoon, and he cuts his waffles down the middle in the morning to share with Richie. Eddie is a really big giver, and he likes to be called _baby_, and it takes some prodding to get him to admit _his _fantasies, the ones he keeps hidden away, under lock and key. And when he tells them to Richie, he really, really tries to deliver, but sometimes he gets so overwhelmed that he’s here, and they’re _this_, and he’s kissing Eddie again—

(_though sometimes he wonders if his memories are just desires so realistic they only seem like they’ve happened before, and then Eddie gets that look in his eye and Richie knows they’re real_)

“You’re being creepy,” Eddie says. “Either enter or exit. Pick one.”

“You’ve been staring at that thing for three days straight,” Richie notes. “What are you up to?”

“I am,” Eddie starts, “researching. You live in L.A., right?”

“Haven’t moved since you asked this morning,” Richie says. “Whatcha researching?”

Eddie blinks. “Uh.” His hand hovers the top of the computer like he’s about to close it, and he looks up for the first time, meeting Richie’s inquisitive stare. “Los Angeles.”

“Los Angeles,” Richie repeats. “You used to be a better liar than that, Eds—yeah, I know, don’t call you that, blah, blah, _blah_. If you’re lookin’ up L.A., you’re not terribly busy. C’mon, I wanna show you something.”

“You can call me Eds,” Eddie says, “I don’t mind it.”

“Right,” Richie says, “right. I—I knew that.” He’s mesmerized by the bashful tilt of Eddie’s smile, close-lipped and small. Cheeks pink, it’s clear Eddie is not used to being honest about things like this when their entire relationship has been him fighting Richie.

He shuts the laptop, kicks the blankets from his feet, and stands up. His plain black tee makes Richie miss the collars of his polos, but he swallows that down as Eddie shoves his feet into his sneakers. “Where we goin’?”

“Somewhere,” says Richie. “It won’t take long.”

He takes him to the Kissing Bridge.

He is forty, and his palms are sweaty, and Eddie’s already told him he’s been in love with him since he was eleven. But there are still some things that are scary, even to grown men, when their hearts were not allowed to beat freely in their youth.

And he remembers Eddie crawling through his window to burrow in his blankets, years after Neibolt the first time, head cradled in his neck, _clinging_. And he remembers a kiss in the hammock, gentle and tender and awful, faces hidden beneath a copy of _Uncanny X-Men_, the issue number inconsequential. And he remembers _oh, I love him_, and throwing up in the toilet when he realized _how_, and sobbing when he woke up from a particularly messy wet dream starring Eddie’s mouth, having to wash his sheets at three in the morning. And he remembers Stan figuring it out and _it’s okay_ and _tell him. _And he remembers his own shaky hands and kisses that tasted like cherry Chapstick and skin that smelled like cocoa butter, soft and smooth.

And he remembers _one day when we don’t have to be so scared, I’m going to take him here and I’m going to show him how long it’s been like this._

But you know how that story goes. That day never came.

Well, it comes now.

Richie kills the engine, wipes his hands on his pants, and turns to look at Eddie. “To paint you a picture,” he begins, “it was, like, the middle of that summer, right after you broke your arm and your mom put you on house arrest. I went to the arcade every day when you weren’t around, and I _missed_ you, and your mom wouldn’t let me anywhere near you—”

“It was two weeks,” Eddie interrupts, and he’s picking at the hole in his pants, right at his knees, where his jeans have frayed. “I always—you didn’t climb through my window like you normally—I left it open even though I was _terrified_—”

He pictures it now, Eddie with his nightlights and mountains of pillows and the records he hid from his mom, little head peeking out, eyes trained to the window he would have most certainly locked if he wasn’t waiting for Richie. Richie, who he trusted. Richie, who he—

(_they were thirteen then_)

Richie, who he’d already been in love with for two years. Richie, who _abandoned _him.

He swallows, twenty-seven years of regret threatening to drown him. “I went to the arcade every day,” he repeats, “and I never got any better at Street Fighter. I just—I wanted to play with _you_, and I know you didn’t like the arcade that much—”

“I liked it because you liked it—”

“And Bowers’ cousin, he was there, and I didn’t know he was his cousin, and I just—I didn’t want to play alone, and then they thought that I was—but I _wasn’t_—”

Eddie reaches out to take his hand. “Are you having a panic attack?”

“No, I—” _can’t tell this story correctly._ He unbuckles his seatbelt and for some reason unbuckles Eddie’s too. “Come with me.”

He’s out of the car in a second, running his hand along the roof of the car—Eddie has yet to complain about insurance rates and accidents in this timeline, but this Eddie has a hard-on for cars, so it’s debatable if he will—and he’s meeting Eddie’s gaze, and he’s jerking his head to the side. It’s right there, he can see it, clear as day, faded with time but somehow still as new as the day he carved it.

_R+E_

Richie gestures to it with an open palm. “I wasn’t gay, not yet,” he says, “but I was gay for you, and when they thought at the arcade that I was into Bowers’ cousin, that’s when I realized I only wanted to play Street Fighter with another person if it was with you, and I only wanted to share beds with another person if it was with you, and I only wanted to try to fit in the hammock if it was with you. I didn’t know who to tell, because I didn’t know how you felt and I didn’t know how our friends would take it, but I had to tell someone, and all the older kids were always carving their names in this thing, so I—I told the bridge.” He nudges the wood, right beneath it, toe of his shoe digging into _Allison_. “She’s good at keeping secrets.”

“Huh,” Eddie says on the breath of a laugh. “I used to pass by this all the time. I never thought it meant…”

“Very common initials,” Richie says. “Coulda been Rebecca and Eric.”

“Who are Rebecca and Eric?”

“I don’t know, I made them up, but it coulda been them.”

“Good story.” Eddie crouches down, outlines the letters with his finger, says, “You have terrible handwriting.”

“It is _two letters_,” Richie replies, indignant. “You try carving letters into a _bridge_, tell me if you think you can do it better.”

Eddie looks up at him, grin wrinkling at his nose. His lips are red with the signs of light sunburn and the freckles on his cheeks are growing more pronounced as his skin darkens; Eddie Kaspbrak, always a summer child. “I did,” he tells him. He offers up his hand. “Help me up.”

Richie grasps it, but he hardly helps Eddie stand, and then they are just holding hands, Eddie beaming in that shit-eating sort of way of his and Richie actively frowning.

“You are not the only one with an intimate relationship with his bridge,” Eddie says, and he tugs Richie along, searching. “It’s been, like—it’s been a while, where is—_oh_, here! Look. Much neater than yours.”

“You’ve always had stupidly perfect penmanship,” Richie mutters, grousing enough to hide that his heart is beating in his ears.

Eddie nudges him. “You had to be able to _read_ the notes you took in class, Rich.”

“I just read yours,” he says on autopilot, tongue heavy and dry in his mouth.

It doesn’t say _E+R _on the bridge; it does not say _Richie_ in a heart like it says _Joey_ over there. It says—it says _Reddie_, right there, and while it’s most of Eddie’s name, if you know this _E_ stands Eddie Kaspbrak, then you know the _R_ stands for Richie Tozier. But there were so many Edwards at school and so many girls that had names that started with R, like Rachel, and Rebecca, and Roxanne, and Riley, that you couldn’t be sure just looking at it quick. But looking at it now, years later, it’s deliberate and purposeful. It’s the two of them combined the way Richie always wanted them to be, the way he wants them to be forever.

“I told Bill when I was ten that I wanted to marry you,” Eddie explains, “and he said, like, he said—_Okay, I think people write the names of people they wanna marry on this bridge. You should put it there so it comes true._ So we went to do it, and I remembered that my mom said it was dirty for boys to marry boys and it wasn’t right. And I remember thinking it couldn’t be dirty or wrong if it was me and you, so Bill and I brainstormed ways to do it without anyone finding out it was us. And so.” He coughs. “Reddie.”

Richie doesn’t say anything, just stares at Eddie’s baby handwriting.

“Get it,” asks Eddie slowly, like he’s concerned Richie is stupid, “Reddie. Richie plus Eddie. _Reddie_.”

“You did this when we were ten?”

“I think,” says Eddie. “We were in fifth grade. It was after the summer carnival at the end of the year, you weren’t there because you had—”

“A stomach virus,” Richie fills in. “I was pissed because there were snow cones.”

“They had that wedding booth that they always had,” Eddie tells him, “and I didn’t want to do it because you weren’t there, and I didn’t want to marry Sally Mueller even though she shared her churro with me, and then Bill asked and—” He stops, shrugs his shoulders. “The story repeats itself. I told it backwards.”

Richie blinks at the _Reddie_ and twists his torso to find the _R+E_. They’re feet away from each other, no more than half a yard at most, and they’ve been like that for, for, for, for—he can’t do the math fast enough, can’t do it _at all_—

(_twenty-seven years_)

He grabs Eddie by the cheeks and kisses him, sloppy and wet and with too much teeth, but Eddie doesn’t try to slow him down. He feeds the fire, stokes the flames, curls his fingers into Richie’s belt loops and tugs so they’re hip to hip, and Eddie’s half-perched on the bridge, one leg dangling, his other balancing on the toes he presses into the ground.

Richie’s hand slides to the back of Eddie’s neck at the same time Eddie pulls his face down, closer. He gives Richie exactly what he’s receiving, a kiss that’s wrought with so much emotion it’s basically a fight, like they’re trying to determine who loves who more, like it is a competition on who has the superior bridge carving. Eddie fucking _growls_ when Richie hoists his other hip up, making him taller, giving him leverage, and his teeth slide against the flesh of Richie’s lower lip, and the tang of blood is getting in the way.

And it should bother Eddie, that’s a thing that bothers him, but it doesn’t. He pulls away, wipes at the cut with the heel of his hand, and then he’s kissing him again, slower and gentle, like he’s trying to coax something out of Richie. His tongue runs over the split once, twice, three times until he pulls the lip into his mouth with his teeth, sucking then letting go.

Richie touches his finger to where it stings, thinks that he’s always going to have some sort of bloody lip when Eddie’s involved, and says, “Guess she’s so good at keeping secrets she even kept them from us, too.”

* * *

“Wait,” he says, “is that what Bill meant by being glad we got our shit together? Has he been waiting _thirty years_ for this?”

“Have you not?” Eddie shoots back, confused.

“A little less,” Richie says. He’s got the memories of a chaste teenage relationship buried in his brain—not enough, but something. 

_@bill thanks for helping eddie carve his love for me into the kissing bridge_, Richie types into the group, attaching the picture he’d taken before he’d left.

Immediately Bill replies, _don’t thank me I’m the president of the Reddie Support Group. Stan was VP and Mike took the minutes._

_I was a big fan, never attended, loved the love_, Ben says.

_Ben is my new best friend_, Richie sends back. _Plus Bev, who has never done anything wrong ever._

Eddie sends a picture of the initials Richie put into the wood. _He put this here because he didn’t want to play street fighter with anyone else._

_Whoever said romance is dead has not met Richie_, Ben says.

_Fucking suck up_, Bill replies.

Bev blasts them with an alarming number of heart eye emojis.

Mike, ten minutes later, says, _do not rope me into this, I just wanted help with my English homework_, and then because he’s Mike and he can, he adds, _how’s that ending going, by the way, bud? _

Richie cackles so loudly Eddie steps hard on the brake. He does not explain why, merely types back, _oh god what a burn. Mike, fight for my best friendship with Ben. Go._

* * *

He doesn’t feel as sad as he did last time, saying bye to all of them, though his heart does sting a bit when he passes by the _Exiting Derry _sign. It’s not the place, exactly, fuck this place, but it’s the people and the relationships. The memories and the friendships that didn’t last even though they should. Even though they’re one of those things that just starts right back up where it left off despite all the time between. Richie can hardly remember the past twenty years, essentially friendless and lonely. Two days back home and it’s like they never left.

(_that’s because they didn’t, not really_)

He rolls up to a red light on the way to Bangor, the designated driver, and spares a glance in the rearview mirror. Mike’s driving his truck after them, seeing them off, and then taking the long way to Florida with all the suggested pitstops along the way. Eddie and Ben have given him an entire list of places to see all the way down to Georgia. He shoots him a peace sign he’s not sure he sees until Mike flashes his brights at him. Bill, Bev, and Eddie are all slouched over each other, asleep, with Eddie curled into Bill’s side. Bev’s got her head on his shoulder, legs up on the seat, one knee against the door, and Bill’s somehow holding onto Eddie the same way Richie would, like he can’t believe he’s here, like his presence is a novelty.

As the months drag into years, that will wear off, but for now Eddie allows it.

Beside him, Ben scrolls through his phone with one hand and holds Richie’s coffee in the other. He squints at something, considers it unimportant, and offers the drink when he catches Richie looking at him.

“This is an incredibly long light,” Richie says to him, slurping at the to-go lid.

Ben nods, says, “You’ll make sure she’s okay, right? You’ll take care of her?”

“She’ll take care of herself,” Richie replies because this is—this is _happening_ and he’s really not good with this kind of stuff. “She’s the strongest one out of all of us. She always has been. Tough stuff knocks her down and she gets right back up. I think I need her more than she needs me.”

“Yeah, I know,” he returns. “It’s not that I think she needs it. I just—”

He breaks off, but Richie thinks he gets it, looks at Eddie, cute and relaxed in sleep, and wants to protect him from everything the world has to offer. He’d fight a million Pennywises, every variation of Henry Bowers and Patrick Hockstetter and all those other guys, Eddie’s fucking _mom_—he’d fight them all off for Eddie and that dumb smile, the one that’s just for him. He doesn’t have to, and Eddie would hate it, but he’d do it. It’s the reassurance of the thing. To know that he’s safe, and cared for, and somebody loves him. He wonders how far Eddie will let him go because he loves him back.

Richie says, “Y’know, Haystack, you don’t have to go back to—where’s it you live? Kentucky?”

“Nebraska,” Ben corrects. “The light’s green.”

He moves forward, waiting for Ben to say something else, but he doesn’t. He reads Richie bits of the news from his Twitter account, fiddles with the radio, and stays silent on the matter. Eventually Richie stops expecting a response and Ben finishes his coffee, growing colder and colder in his grip.

And then they are returning Richie’s rental car, and they are clamoring into a group hug with Mike, and they are checking Eddie’s suitcases, and they are through security, and they are indulging in mimosas at some overpriced airport restaurant.

Ben’s flight is first, and he leaves to head to the gate, backpack slung over his shoulder. Bill grabs him, holding him by the back of the neck and pressing their foreheads together. They seem to have a conversation, important enough to only exist between the two of them, and then Eddie is infiltrating, and Richie, and they are four men holding each other in the middle of a terminal like they are boys embracing in the quarry, thirteen and loving each other in a way that is inexplicable to anyone else. Their relationships never had to make sense to the rest of the world; it was _theirs_ and they knew and that was all that mattered. Fuck everyone else.

Bev is last to say bye to him and Richie thinks, _This is it, this is the moment_, so he forces the others back to the bar, and keeps himself from watching. They deserve this, Ben and Bev, if they do it. And if they don’t, they still deserve it. Perhaps they have more tact than Richie, perhaps they don’t think kisses in airports mean anything, but if they _do_, Richie isn’t going to let a bunch of losers interfere.

She shows up again, pink in the cheeks, and Richie presses a screwdriver into her hand. He doesn’t ask any questions, even as she presses her face into him, but he can feel her smile against his shoulder.

Richie finds out at the standalone airport bar that Bill has spent the last fifteen years or so living _twenty minutes _away from him and quizzes Bill on his favorite restaurants, coffee shops (_and no, Billiam, Starbucks does not count_), bars, and other eclectic spots like record stores, all the while saying, “What the _fuck_” with Bill’s every answer.

“Do you think we’ve passed each other before?” Richie asks. “Do you think we’ve been at the same bar and not _known_?”

Bill scoffs. “A-as if I could for-forget these ugly shirts.”

There is a cacophony of noise as the other three reply to him.

“_Ugly_?” Richie squawks.

“I’m going to fix it,” Bev says.

“I _like_ the shirts,” Eddie blurts, and then hides his face in his bellini when they all turn to look at him.

“Mhm,” Bev coos, “I bet you do.” She reaches over to pat his cheek, less condescending than it is reassuring, and Bill smirks at him because Bill knows everything there is to know about Eddie—teen Eddie, at least, who seems to have crawled into adult Eddie’s skin and made a home there.

Richie’s smile is easy, eyes glittering, when he says, “Oh, really? I thought you hated these. What’d you call them—a, a, a, a garish cry for help?”

“You look like a dad on vacation,” Eddie snaps. “You look like a dad having a midlife crisis on vacation. You’ve looked like that for _years_.”

“And yet you find me remarkably attractive,” Richie drawls out, slow like molasses, and he feels Eddie’s gaze on his mouth. He licks at his lower lip, wet with orange juice. “Are dads your type, Eds?”

“Sure,” Eddie replies, “the hot ones.”

“Mhm,” Bev agrees. “Mhm, mhm, _mhm_.”

Bill laughs and there is something in the tone of it that piques Richie’s interest. He moves his attention from Eddie to him, cups his chin in his hand. “Yes, Bill?”

“Nothing,” Bill says, but Eddie makes a sound in the back of his throat and drains his drink in one go. That is _thrilling_ to Richie, and apparently to Bill, who snorts.

“Bill,” Richie presses. “Big Bill, Billy, light of my life—”

“_Hey_,” says Bev.

“I’m just buttering him up,” Richie explains, throwing a wink at Bill, who rolls his eyes but looks endlessly amused. “You know I love you most, Bev.” 

“Okay, _what_,” Eddie exclaims.

Richie throws one of his hands into the air, flicking the fingers, and points at Eddie. “I love you different,” he says, an echo of the dramatic confession in the sewer. “Penny for your thoughts, Billy?”

“You don’t have to puh-pay me,” says Bill, “just buy the next r-round.”

And he does because he is curious and because they have hours still to kill, two more screwdrivers and a couple of bellinis, and it isn’t even Bill who spills the beans. It’s Eddie, who swaps drinks with Richie, and swallows half the glass like he’s embarrassed.

“I used to steal your shirts when I slept over,” he tells him, tells _them_. Bev lets out a squeak. “I’d steal them and then I’d wash them and I’d—keep them. I even packed them up and brought them to college with me. I still have them. I couldn’t get rid of them. I didn’t know why.” 

“Holy shit,” Bev says. “We’ll work around the shirts.”

Richie grins. “Guess you couldn’t forget me that easily, huh?”

“Guess not,” says Eddie. 

Bill laughs again and Bev shoots up to shove him, an action that ends in a tussle sort of hug, the two of them clinging to each other in a way that boasts of love and the kind of bravery that brings together a bunch of teens. They loved each other once, in a way that can only be explained when you’re young and afraid of life itself, but now they love each other in a way that means forever, no matter what kind of love that ends up being. He musses up her hair and she pinches the skin by his collarbone, cheeks flushed with happiness, and it is such a contrast to when she arrived, white in the face and weary.

“Alright, January Embers,” Bill teases, “wanna take a sh-sh-shhhot with me?”

“Depends on what it is,” she replies, but they’re flagging the bartender down anyway.

Richie scoots down to take Bev’s seat, the one between him and Eddie, and hooks his arm around Eddie, pulling him close. He smells clean and woodsy, with just a hint of alcohol, and Richie presses his lips to his temple, dropping his mouth to his ear. “Loved me even when you didn’t know who I was,” he whispers. “What’d you do with the shirts anyway?”

Eddie shrugs, hiding his smile in Richie’s bicep. “I wore them sometimes,” he admits, “when I missed you. I thought it was seasonal depression.”

“Then I’ve been experiencing seasonal depression my whole life, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie murmurs, interlocking their fingers.

They watch Bill and Bev clink glasses and knock back shots, though they aren’t sure what they are. Bill makes a face, Bev licks her lips, and then he’s saying something to her that makes her laugh, and Richie’s chest warms. This is what he’s been missing: genuine friendship, the kind of shit that makes him laugh for days on end, the kind of relationships that leave him feeling loved and wanted. Fuck, he’s not even interacting with Bev and Bill right now but he knows—he _knows_—there’s no place they’d rather be. The same way he knows Ben shouldn’t be headed back to Nebraska and Mike won’t end up too far from them in the end.

He thinks about Eddie at eighteen, nineteen, twenty, wearing his ugly shirts, layering them over long sleeves and turtlenecks. He thinks about how every guy he’s ever been interested in has looked, in some way, like Eddie, but he could never commit because they were missing something, something he couldn’t determine. It’s all here in front of him, the whole package, and Richie says, right in his ear, “Wanna fuck in the bathroom?”

“Absolutely not,” replies Eddie, “but we can make out.”

“Same thing,” says Richie.

Eddie presses his nose to Richie’s. “You are _not_ taking my pants off in this airport.”

Richie grins against Eddie’s mouth. “We’ll see.”

(He doesn’t get his pants _off_, but he does get them around his ankles, which is a win, no matter what Eddie says.)

* * *

When they make it to LAX, three hours behind with hangovers beginning to pound behind their eyes, they split from Bill, who gets picked up by his wife. Audra spends approximately three minutes cooing over Bev and her clothing line—she wore one of her dresses to a premiere, a purple number Bev recites back to her, down to the additional swathes of cloth and shade of lilac she custom-ordered.

It is—it’s _something_ to see Bill’s childhood crush and wife laugh at each other like this, but Bill only seems tickled by it, smiling vacantly as he watches.

They say their goodbyes, and Audra insists they all get together some time for dinner when shooting’s wrapped up, and Richie is slapping Bill on the back, wrapping him in a hug.

“Got any ideas for the ending?” he asks.

Bill shrugs, a careless motion, and Eddie’s been mocking him for days about it, but now he says, “You don’t actually have to change it if you don’t want to.” Maybe it’s his deep-rooted hatred for each additional one—traumatic due to Eddie’s, you know, _dying_—but maybe he’s also being sincere. It’s hard to tell.

But Bill merely shakes his head and pulls Eddie in, tucking him against his chest. “No,” he tells him, and he looks over at Richie, over at Bev, who is exchanging numbers with Audra. “I w-w-want to. I need to.” He musses Eddie’s hair like a big brother would, like years ago he’d done to Georgie. “I know exactly what to d-do.”

“Yeah?” Richie poses. “Do tell.”

“You read this one?” Eddie asks.

“I think,” says Richie. “Isn’t it the one with the—and the—and then the guy does—and the whole thing ends up being, like, childhood repression?”

“Did you just mime the entire ending of _The Attic_?” Eddie asks, amazed.

Richie nods, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I read it on a flight,” he says. “It was good. Sad but good.”

“Yeah,” says Bill, “but he’s gonna luh-luh-live this time around.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, but now I have to go before they s-sense I’m buh-back,” Bill says. “If I don’t have pages for them by tomorrow I am suh-suh-certain I’m dead.”

Richie salutes him. “If there is not at least one text in the chat by eleven forty-seven tomorrow morning, I’ll send in the cavalry.”

“Eleven forty-seven?”

“On the dot,” Richie promises. 

Bill’s smile splits his face in two, wrinkles his nose. “I’ll be done by eleven forty-five,” he says, no stutter.

(Tomorrow, at ten fifty, Bill sends them the new ending, twenty-something pages that have yet to go through the producer, director, or his wife, and the movie ends on a happier, more wistful note than the book. A real Hollywood ending, something that will get everyone off Bill’s back.

Eddie reads it with a critical eye and Bev and Richie watch him, nursing warm cups of coffee, and he responds, _Yes_.

Mike, somewhere in Massachusetts, says, _This guy reminds me of Eddie._

Simply, Bill replies, _That’s why he lives._

Two hours later, Ben texts, _hi wtf I’m crying._)

* * *

Amidst the five days of missed mail—of bills, coupons to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and magazine subscriptions—three letters wait. They all have the same address, just different recipients: _Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Bev Marsh_. Stan’s scribbled his name in the upper left hand corner, precise and stiff, with a swooping _y_ at the end of _Stanley_.

Richie swallows hard. _I wrote you a letter, by the way. It explains everything. _His hand shakes, pressing against the sealed flap, and he can’t look at it, can’t look at the implications, at the _definitive _edge of Stan’s handwriting. He watches Bev flounce away with hers instead, clutched tightly in a fist. Her hair is a red wave behind her, falling out of the tiny ponytail she’d wrestled it into on the plane, a little nub. Eddie smooths his out on the table, shit abandoned behind him, and Richie wants to press his palm to the space between his shoulder blades and pull the tension from his spine. He wants someone else to hold _him_, he thinks, comfort him through this.

“C’mon,” Eddie says, reaching out blindly to take his hand. The warmth and familiarity send a jolt through him, a memory careening up his forearm to his elbow, settling there. The first time he’d held hands with Eddie without him pulling away immediately, licking ice cream that melted down the cone onto his thumb. Thirteen years old, saying, _Hey, can you hold this for me_, and thrusting his palm out, all calm and cool like his insides weren’t tap dancing to the sound of the school marching band.

Man, he was always trying to hold this little shit’s hand. Now he doesn't have to _try_.

Bev is camped out on the living room couch, eyes moving ever so slowly across the page as if she is committing it to memory. As if she is living the words as she reads, hearing them all. As if she does not want to reach the bottom. Eddie takes the seat on her left, running his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck. It clings to her skin there, slightly sweaty after the day of traveling and drinking they’ve done, but Eddie makes no comment. He sits, breaks open his envelope, thumb straight across the top, and then he’s gone, immersed in Stan, leaning his head against Bev’s shoulder. She slumps down to make him more comfortable, twists her leg with his.

Richie stares for a moment at his two friends, beaten down by life, and is glad to be here with them as they begin to heal. Is glad they chose _him _to heal with. Glad they trust him enough to be part of the process.

He sits on Bev’s right. Looks at the thing in his hands. Looks at Bev, watches her sniffle, sees _Thanks for always banishing the nightmares_. Looks at Eddie, who is frowning, eyes bright, tapping his foot against the floor to an uneven rhythm.

His own letter is somehow in his hand, folded. He can see the indentations of Stan’s writing, a message meant only for him.

It starts with _Trashmouth_, and Richie thinks he’s going to die. The ringing in his ears almost cancels out the way he can hear Stan call him that, exasperated and fond, pretending to be irritated with one of his crude jokes when, in reality, Stan always thought he was funny.

Then it goes: _Sorry I never told you about world five. I had to be sure we could make it. I didn't want to get your hopes up._

Richie is the first to start crying because he’s a fuckin’—because he just _cries_ now, apparently. He wipes his eyes with the bottom of his shirt, so remarkably unsanitary, and tries to read on, but it’s fruitless. His vision is blurrier than usual, and he can taste his sadness on his tongue, living in the back of his throat, stuck like a cough.

Stan says, _Whatever Bill remembers of me is fucking wrong. I read that stupid book of his, I am not that fucking lame, Jesus Christ. Remind him of that, will you? We were always getting up to stupid shit, me and you._

Stan says, _I saw you name a goddamn Pomeranian after me and that kind of disgusting torture is forbidden. Only name a dog after me if it’s regal, Richie, or I will find a way to haunt you forever. Don’t think I won’t._

Stan says, _I’m sorry, _and Stan says, _I would have loved to have known you_, and Stan says, _Write your own material for fuck’s sake_, and Stan says, _Whenever you question it, don’t. I’ve seen how he looks at you in every timeline. It’s the same._

Stan says, _I love you_, and Stan says, _Live your life the way you want to_, and Stan says, _If you find someone worth holding on to, never let them go_, and Stan says, _The thing about being a loser is you don’t have anything to lose._

And that’s not true, even for them, for the Losers Club, who always had something to lose but kept fighting for it anyway. Love. Each other. A future.

They’re a trio of middle-aged adults crying in a goddamn heap on a couch that does not fit them, and Eddie surges over to kiss Richie on the mouth, Bev squished between them. She lets out a shrieking hack of a laugh, the kind she does when she thinks things are really funny, and claws at Eddie, shouting, “Why am I in the middle of this? Why am I in the middle of this?”

Eddie hugs her to his chest, lips pressed to the underside of Richie’s chin. Richie makes the conscious choice to wrap his arms around both of them, clutching, clinging, _keeping_, and then yelps, “My _back_, you assholes!”

They call Bill, and Mike, and Ben, crowded around Eddie’s phone, and they share all the things they can remember about Stan until they’re fresh out of tears and Bill is reading passages of what Richie dubs _The Stan Book_ out loud, stuttering through the lines famously.

“Stan would _never_,” Ben says at one point to which Richie yells, “Stan _did_, Haystack, summer of ’92. I dared him, and he did it, and I love him.”

* * *

It gets easier, after that, once they all settle into a routine.

* * *

Bev buys a sewing machine from a local thrift store and fills her sketchbook with outfit ideas for Richie. She pieces together a jacket, tailored perfectly for his long torso and even longer arms, and when Audra invites them to the wrap party for _Attic_, she makes him wear it. As expected, he puts up a fight. 

“I’ve been to parties before, Bev, I _know_ how to dress.” Richie pulls at his collar, miming strangulation, and she slaps his hand.

“I’ve seen the pictures, I’ve talked to your team, I am one with your closet,” Bev says, smoothing him out. “It’s not hard to look nice, see? It’s simple. It’s still you.”

“Yeah.” Richie grimaces. “If I were going to a funeral. This is supposed to be _fun_.”

“It’s not even—the shirt is _pink_,” Bev says. “Do you wear pink to funerals?”

“Yeah, when I’m celebrating _life_,” Richie retorts, unbuttoning his sleeves and attempting to push them up to his elbows. “This is so restricting. Bev, you’re restricting me. I spent most of my childhood repressed, why would you do this to me?”

Bev pinches the skin beneath his ear, holds it until it stings. “You’re being a baby, Richie,” she tells him. “Stop fiddling. There’s a jacket, too.”

“A jacket!” he parrots. “It is _September_, Bev, and it’s still fucking _hot_. I know you lived in a land of four seasons, but it is fuckin’ _balmy_ out, and you have me in a long-sleeved shirt and a jacket? Who have I angered today?”

“Oh my god. No wonder people can’t stand you,” Bev says, “you’re literally the worst. I did not spend a week slaving over your weird-ass measurements for you not to wear this. Stop being a baby.”

She makes him shrug the jacket on. Tugs on his lapels. Presses her thumb to his forced frown and pushes the corner of his mouth up. “Believe it or not,” she murmurs, “you do actually look good when you try.”

He looks at himself in the mirror over Bev’s head, tall and gangly with glasses that take up most of his face. He licks her finger. She leaves it there, pressed against his tongue, and pinches him. He moves his face, uninterested now; she doesn’t freak about germs like Eddie does, so it’s pointless to continue. 

“It looks nice, Bev,” he says to her, stuffing his hands in his pockets. The lining inside is soft. The whole thing is incredibly comfortable, the material breathable and light as if Bev had, y’know, done her job well and researched the weather patterns of Los Angeles.

“I know, I made it,” she says flippantly, but the way she worries her lip implies she needed his approval, like she wasn’t sure she was _good_ at this. The great Beverly Marsh, the third most sought after designer in the world, whose touch turns everything to gold. Fuck Tom Rogan honestly. Bev coughs and Richie smiles, kind of pained and thin around the edges but entirely sincere. 

“If you behave,” she adds quickly, slipping out of her fear like a snake does its skin, becoming something new, “we can promote you to printed shirts.”

“Gee, thanks. Are you always this mean to your clients?”

“You’re not paying me.”

“Because you won’t _let _me,” Richie complains. “If you’re going to make me the next Internet sex symbol—”

“Oh, as _if_—”

“Who’s the next Internet sex symbol?” asks Eddie, barreling into the room. Richie watches him in the mirror, eyes raking over him, and Bev releases his mouth, wiping her thumb on his cheek. “Should I wear a tie? Should I not wear a tie? What is everyone else—oh.”

_Oh_, he says, and his cheeks honestly never stop flushing, regardless of how often he sees Richie, talks to Richie, is complimented by Richie. He blushes like he hasn’t been able to _want_ in years, like he hasn’t been able to desire anything or anyone in his life. It’s like he’s a prepubescent all over again, discovering through hormones what really gets him off. Like he’s finally been let off his leash. Richie thinks it’s adorable, but he’s thought that for years, so he’s probably biased. 

Eddie blurts, “You’re wearing that?”

Bev says, “Yeah.” She smirks at him when he looks at her, gaze unfocused even as he blinks. 

“Not you,” he says. “Wait, I mean—you look nice, obviously, you always—I mean—“ He opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water, twists a tie, royal blue, around his fist. 

She laughs, fusses with a button on Richie’s shirt, and then takes her leave. Richie hardly notices what she does, attention on Eddie, always on Eddie—his red ears and his mouth and his eyes, which burn into Richie’s skin. 

“No tie,” she tells Eddie. “You’ll look stuffy.” 

He hisses, “_Shoulders_, Bev.”

“You’re _welcome_,” she says back, on the breath of another laugh. She snatches the ties from his hands. “Don’t make us late for the party.”

Richie, caught in the return of Eddie’s gaze, replies, “No promises.”

Eddie is rigid in the doorway, so close yet so far, and Richie rolls his body out, listening for the telltale sounds of Bev leaving. She’s not going to wait for them; she’ll tell Bill all about this and they’ll laugh and she’ll enjoy time with Audra, and Richie and Eddie will be here—

“See something you like, Spagheds?” 

Eddie sniffs, tilts his chin up like he’s trying to hide his feelings. “You look decent for a change,” he says. “I’m shocked is all.” 

“Mhm.” Richie grins. “Shocked.” 

“Yeah,” says Eddie. “You don’t look homeless. The blogs will go wild, but they go wild for your dumb pug shirt so it’s not like that means much of anything.” 

“Aw, Eds!” Richie exclaims, clutching his heart. “You check the blogs? Do you run one? Are you secretly my biggest fan?”

“It’s not a secret, dickhead,” Eddie shoots back. “I’ve been your biggest fan for decades. Fuck off.”

Richie scratches the side of his nose, biting back his smile. This is not how they work; he should be able to shoot back some other witty quip—he’s good at those with the Losers, with Eddie—but this is just another example of how a means to poke fun at Eddie goes horribly wrong for Richie and he’s not even mad. He’s warm and wanted and happy. 

His comedy career is _fucked_.

Eddie tracks the movements of his fingers, of his hand as it drops back down and slips into a pocket. Trails up the sleeve of his jacket to his face. Back down to the jacket. Back to his face. 

Richie blinks, and Eddie is gone. Blinks and Eddie is behind him. Blinks and Eddie’s hands are sliding up his back, resting at the nape of his neck. His fingers are hot and jittery, like he can’t contain himself. Richie swallows. 

“You have really nice fuckin’ shoulders,” Eddie says, touch ghosting across them. “If you wore things that fit you properly—“ He cuts himself off, pushes himself to his toes, presses his nose to Richie’s hair. Richie feels all of him against his back, stares at the way Eddie’s hands are all over him in the mirror, and draws in a shuddering breath. It hitches down his throat to his lungs, sends his heart into a frenzy, trying to keep up. 

“This is a nice jacket,” he continues. He tugs at it, at the back of the collar. “You should take it off.”

“But you like it,” Richie says. 

“Take it off,” Eddie orders. The tone of his voice blossoms in the pit of Richie’s stomach, sends feelers to his dick and his heart, which respond in entirely different ways. 

“Yeah, I—yeah,” Richie agrees, sliding out of it, watching Eddie’s eyes darken, letting it—

“Don’t just put it on the _floor_,” Eddie chides, taking it from where it’s bunched at Richie’s wrists. “You’ll ruin it and you’re going to wear it again, and—_what_?” 

Richie shakes his head, grinning at him, and it’s half-feral and half-endeared. “You’re folding it.” 

“I’m not _folding_—it’ll get wrinkled that way, I’m just going to lay it over the chair so you don’t destroy it with your stupid feet.” 

“You like my feet,” Richie challenges.

Eddie latches himself back on Richie, winding his arms around his middle, nose pressed between his shoulder blades. “Your feet are disgusting,” he snaps. 

“You _liiiiiike_ my feet,” Richie sing-songs.

Eddie digs his fingers into Richie’s sides hard enough to leave bruises and then fiddles with the bottom of his shirt. “I like everything about you,” he says. He loosens one of his buttons. “I like your stupid glasses”—and another—“I like it when you stare at me”—and another—“I like how tall you are”—and another—“I even like that weird honking sound you make when you actually think something is really funny.” 

Compliment after compliment, button after button until his shirt hangs open, and Eddie’s warm hands are on Richie, heating him up from the inside out, making him shiver. Eddie takes what he wants, pulling the shirt down to Richie’s elbows, and then his mouth is on him, wet slurping kisses down his neck, across his back. His teeth bite down on the skin of his shoulders; his lips wrap around the bone of his shoulder blade and suck. He touches everything else he can’t reach, focused solely on the one area, gripping him and pulling him and putting him where he wants. 

Richie thinks maybe Eddie is about to artfully place bruises all around his back. Thinks he’ll tattoo them there when he's done, so Eddie can see how wholly Richie is his. Can see how he marks him. 

The intensity—the _urgency_—in his motions, in the way he takes his free arm and loops it around Richie’s chest and _tugs_ him, bringing him closer—it has Richie trying to reach back to him, but he can’t, unable to grip on to anything substantial. 

Eddie steps on his heel when he rocks forward with his hips. Richie doesn’t notice it, even as his foot moves out of the way, smarting; he only feels Eddie’s building hardness against the back of his thigh, feels the way Eddie maneuvers so it’s beneath one of Richie’s asscheeks. _Whines_, when Eddie pitches forward again, his knee digging into the back of Richie’s.

He has the fleeting thought to ask his manager to add Bev to the payroll. 

Then it’s gone, his mouth working around the syllables of, “What are you doing?” He doesn’t even recognize the sound of his own voice. Doesn’t recognize anything, just watches Eddie’s slow rutting against him, clear as day in the mirror. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s doing it but Richie can’t look away. 

He loves this mirror.

“I’ve always liked your shoulders,” Eddie mumbles into his back. “Always liked your hands, too. Always did shit to get you to touch me.”

“I know,” Richie says, even though he doesn’t, “I always found excuses to.” 

“Didn’t need excuses,” Eddie breathes, pulling Richie’s shirt off the rest of the way. “Could’ve just asked. I woulda said yes. I did say yes, once. In the Barrens. D’you remember?” 

Richie remembers—he remembers being, like, sixteen and scared and thinking he was going to come messily and loudly in his own pants the second he’d touched Eddie, fingers trembling around him. He’d backed him into a secluded spot in the water, loudly trying to cajole him into playing another round of Chicken with him even though Eddie hated that Richie deliberately lost. The rest of them were making up for their absence, Stan and Ben against Mike and Bill, and Richie boxed Eddie against a rock, and Eddie tilted his chin up and said, almost like a challenge, “You can touch me if you want.”

Twenty-four years later, Richie asks, “Can I touch you?” 

Eddie grins against his back. “Please.”

Richie twists around, palms already on Eddie’s face, bringing him closer as he bends down. It’s a wet slide of a kiss, Eddie’s mouth already red and slightly swollen from the damage he’d done to Richie’s back. He kisses him enthusiastically, wrapping his fingers around Richie’s neck and controlling the way Richie licks into him. He sighs a little into his mouth, tightening his fingers into Richie’s hair and pulling. 

“I liked when it was longer,” Eddie admits, frowning. 

“You’re the one who bullied me into cutting it,” Richie retorts, slanting over him again. 

Eddie backs up, a little shuffle, to watch him tower over him, and smacks his lips. “I regret that,” he says. “I regret that a lot.” 

Richie laughs, pulls him back. “It’ll grow back.” 

“Are you sure,” Eddie replies, skeptical. He reaches up to prod at Richie’s hairline, nose wrinkled. “Statistically—“

“Shut up about statistics,” Richie interrupts, cupping Eddie’s cheek. His thumb strokes the scar that bisects the skin there, long and thin and fully healed but still entirely badass. “What do you want?”

“You,” Eddie says immediately. He does not shy away from this want, something that has defined him for going on thirty years. He’s wanted Richie as his seat partner, and Richie on his team no matter the sport, and Richie in his heart. Doesn’t matter the situation, he wants Richie there. 

It’s been like that for as long as they can remember. It is easy to fall back into it. Easy to get caught up in each other. 

And while Richie agrees and will always answer that question the same way, he still says, “Gross.”

“Yeah, whatever, Mister-Cries-A-Lot,” Eddie retorts with an eye roll. “Feelings are gross and you hate them, try a little harder next time to convince me.” 

“I don’t think I can get any harder if I tried,” Richie says.

“What do _you _want?” Eddie asks.

“You,” Richie says immediately. 

“Gross,” Eddie mimics. 

Richie beams at him, smile splitting his face, all teeth. It’s how he looks all the time now, like he’s forgotten what being miserable was like. He hasn’t even _spoken _to his therapist in weeks, despite all the traumatic shit that went down in Derry. He’s all cheer and whistling and, like, creating extravagant breakfast pancakes. 

“You’re insufferable,” Eddie says. 

“I love you and your big words,” Richie replies. 

“Insufferable isn’t that big of a word.”

“Wanna know what _is _that big of a word?”

“Please don’t say your dick.”

“My dick,” Richie says over him, running his tongue over his teeth when Eddie fixes his patented Richie-glare on him. 

“I hate you.” But Eddie still opens up beneath him, mouth slack against Richie’s, tugging on Richie’s belt loops. 

“Mhm,” Richie hums. Eddie is a fucking liar. 

They kiss lazy and slow as if they have nowhere else in the world to be. In the grand sense of things, they don’t, but they do have an event to attend, and that thought prickles at the back of Richie’s mind. It is not strong enough to get him to stop, so he presses forward, remembers Eddie likes his hands, and uses them to palm his ass—nice and firm and totally unfair for a man of his age to have.

“Bed,” Eddie gasps, biting down on Richie’s lower lip when he grabs his cock through his pants. “Want you on your stomach.” 

“For my shoulders,” Richie guesses. 

“Wanna come on them,” Eddie continues, and his eyes are pools of black, no brown in sight. 

Richie shivers. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” he says. 

“They’ll come off,” Eddie says. “Want me to fuck you fast or slow?”

“Who says you’re the one doing the fucking?”

“You wanna do it?” 

“No,” says Richie, who loves the feeling of being completely helpless when it comes to Eddie. He considers him, the hair in his face, at his ears, curling around them despite his statistics on hair growth after thirty-five. The dimple that comes out more and more, the tan that can never really hide the pink of his blush. “Slow,” he answers, because he loves him.

And Eddie really does take his time, the masochist, because he knows the power he has over Richie. Knows the things that Richie likes, somehow knew things about Richie that Richie himself hadn’t known. _I used to think about it a lot_, Eddie’d said. _Used to watch you all the time. _

And if that doesn’t undo him, knowing his feelings are valid, even as Eddie puts his mouth all over his back, even as he pulls Richie’s pants off, even as he asks, “Can I use my tongue?” 

Eddie loves to ask if he can do things. Loves consent. Loves knowing Richie wants what he wants. It’s two parts him getting off on validation and one part him never being given many choices in his life before, so he always makes sure Richie knows he does. That he can say no and Eddie will stop. 

Rarely does Richie say no, though, so he replies, “Yeah,” and when he feels Eddie’s fingers pull his cheeks apart, he shifts his knees and bites down on his forearm. Eddie licks at him, fucking _slurps_, and Richie keens anyway, loud where his teeth are digging into his skin.

It is a meticulous torture, Eddie working him, loosening him. Eddie takes great care to make sure it’s effective and Richie enjoys it, but Richie would enjoy anything Eddie did to him. He hasn’t had this much sex with someone he legitimately likes before, so everything is increased tenfold. With it being Eddie, it feels like he’s hit nirvana and won’t be coming back down. 

Everything Eddie does is heightened, echoes down to the atoms that make him whole, has his whole body on edge—every lick, every satisfied sound, the way he hums around his asshole. He feels Eddie’s fingers in his throat almost like he’s choking him, one two three, sliding and scissoring, and he is full full _full_. When Eddie asks, “Now?” Richie can only whimper in reply. 

His dick is hard and aching against the bedsheets and Richie moves his hips for friction, for _anything_. Eddie presses his palm flat against Richie’s lower back, says, “Not yet,” and slides his own cock between Richie’s cheeks, warm and wet. 

“_Eddie_,” he snaps. 

Eddie laughs. Does it again. It’s a game. It’s always a game with them. He knows that, Eddie knows that, and Richie’s dick does too, twitching with every laugh. 

Richie inhales sharply, wriggling beneath him, trying to grind backwards. Eddie grips his hips, lifts them, and lines himself up, barely giving Richie a moment to prepare before he’s entering him, slower than Richie could have possibly imagined. 

He chokes on a sob, bites down on his arm again, and reaches back to tangle his fingers with Eddie’s.

Their hands are sweaty and the angle is uncomfortable. Eddie kisses the spot between Richie’s shoulder blades, still fully fucking dressed except for his pants, and bottoms out. 

They get to the wrap party late. Eddie ignores Bev’s comment about his sex hair and makes a beeline to the bar—and Bill and Audra. 

Richie comes up to her, palms her cheeks, and says, “Please let me pay you.” 

“I am not your pimp,” she says haughtily. 

“Beverly,” he replies sternly, clutching her face. 

“Richard,” she returns, pinching the skin between his thumb and index finger.

He pouts, widening his eyes behind his glasses. He feels refreshed, he feels alive, he feels—like he’s where he’s meant to be. “Please.”

She stares at him, lips pursed, eyes still dancing with amusement. “Fine,” she acquiesces, “but only because I’m a poor, struggling artist.”

“I don’t make you pay rent and I buy you everything you could possibly want,” Richie retorts. “How is that _struggling_?” 

Bev takes a dainty sip of champagne and replies with the utmost grace, “I live with you two animals.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the fever dream continues! did any of this need to happen the way it did? absolutely not. is it everything i've ever wanted? yes. will this story be over next chapter? it better or i'll cry.
> 
> the conversation eddie and richie have about valentine's day is more fleshed out [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22695214/chapters/54243016)

Life goes on as it always does. Turns out it does not stop for anyone, even if you’ve faced your biggest fears in a sewer system in Maine twice now. Richie wants to write a formal letter and complain, but he’s not sure who to send it to. 

Eddie continues his research and quits his job, which upsets everyone in New York and pleases Richie to no end. 

They spend lazy mornings getting to know each other again, asking questions and remembering the odd fact, like Eddie enjoys long distance running and Richie is a remarkably good cook. They FaceTime with Mike as he travels down the East Coast. Eddie starts a book club with only Ben, the two of them reading Bill’s books and criticizing them like only friends can. They also read those weird bodice-rippers, the ones with Fabio on the cover, which Eddie hides under the mattress from Richie, who finds them anyway. He calls Ben to ask if this is where he gets his material from.

Richie goes with Bev to fabric stores and sits in parks to view the street fashion of the teens and young adults of L.A., and gets coffee twice a week with Bill, who is outlining another book. He’s trying his hand at horror comedy now and wants Richie’s insight on making it funnier. Richie insists that he plays the main character if he gets greenlit for another movie. Bill says, “No promises,” and then texts him later to let him know Audra is onboard, if and _ only if _ it gets picked up. _ And dude_, he says, _ I also need to write it first. _

Bev enlists Eddie’s help with her projects, cutting and threading and standing perfectly still so she can mold cashmere and cotton and sometimes lace around him. She makes boxes of clothes and donates them to women’s shelters, and goes through Richie’s closet for a third time, trying to get a sense of who he is as a person. She finds nothing she didn’t already know, clutching a horrendous paisley print to her chest like a lifeline, like a promise. She spends the next forty-eight hours sketching like her life depends on it, finally finding the right look for him. The right look for _ her_—no more formalwear that costs an arm and a leg to afford. She’s going casual now, denim overalls and patterned shorts, polo shirts and jorts. She mocks up a logo for herself in the corner of one of her books. No more _ Rogan&Marsh_, just _ Losers Club_. She feels more like herself than she has in years, shading in the _ L _ so it stands out a little more. 

Ben talks to her every night, phone calls that can last up to two hours, and when she files for divorce, six weeks after she requested the papers, she hangs up with him to drink wine with Eddie, who is already going through the process. 

Richie finds them curled up together on the couch, each a bottle deep, watching his old stand up. He is mortified, but Bev is laughing hysterically and Eddie is hiding his face in her neck, saying over and over, “I can’t _ look _ at him, Bev, what the _ fuck_.” 

She pats his hair and says, “Yes, honey, he is very pretty. I understand.”

They are both pink from the laughter and the wine, but the flush climbing up Eddie’s neck is nothing but a reaction to what he’d called his _ massive, uncomfortable crush _ on Richie. He climbs into the tangle beside him, kisses the knob at the top of Eddie’s spine and says, “This next joke is so fucking stupid but I think I wrote it about you.” 

And who else would it be about? It’s a whole bit about a fucking fanny pack. Multiple, actually, and the Richie onstage emphasizes them—_he had two of them, wore them both at the same time, you know, as one does_—to the endless amusement of his audience, who cannot get over the fact that a twelve year old carried around an assortment of medical supplies. 

“Fuck off.” Eddie snorts. “We’d be _ dead _ without them. I carried your allergy medicine, and your glasses, and Stan’s antibiotics, and this is how I am treated?” 

Richie pets his cheek. “I mean no offense, Your Grace,” he says. “I was just thinkin’ ‘bout you, is all, and I used it as a dumbass punchline. I’ll do damage control next time. Tell ‘em that I loved your fanny packs. Tell ‘em that this twenty-year-old joke no one fuckin’ remembers was actually a repressed memory of mine that somehow got out and that you’re real.” He noses at Eddie like a cat, kisses the corner of his jaw. “Tell ‘em I love _ you_.” 

Bev tries to kick him in the face. Misses. “Knock it off with that, Rich,” she orders. “We’re trying to make fun of you here.” 

He tickles her foot and unlatches from Eddie, who whines and scoots closer to Bev, wrapping himself up in her. She clings. “You weirdos drink all the wine?” he asks. 

“We’re trying,” says Bev. “Bring more.”

They both end up puking. 

Richie takes pictures of them that he sends to the other Losers. _ This is what happens when you try to make fun of my old comedy shows. _

Ben responds, _ Which one did they watch? I just saw the one you did in BK and laughed so hard I choked. _

_ Haystack is still my best friend_, says Richie.

_ Haystack is still a SUCK UP_, texts Bill. 

_ Says the guy who wants to pay me for my comedic prowess_, Richie replies. 

Mike sends _ lol _ and then _ link? _

The video Ben watched has got to be, like, twenty years old at this point. Richie refuses to look at it. He can see from the thumbnail how floppy his hair is. He’s probably awful in it.

Bill asks, _ How do I leave a chat? _

_ Like this_, Eddie replies, and kicks him out.

The next morning Bev sends a series of laughing emojis, adds him back, and says, _ I feel like shit but that video is so fucking funny Richie what happened? _

Eddie says, _ Bye Bev! _ and kicks her out too.

Eddie’s hair grows faster than Richie’s, a full head of curls—because some people are _ blessed_—and Richie loves to touch it, to twist it in his fingers and pull. He starts to like getting Eddie on his knees just for that simple act alone. He gets it now, Eddie’s fantasy when they were kids. Hair is so _ fun_. So nice in his hands.

And the view isn’t half-bad either, Eddie’s cheeks pink and his lips red against his cock. He can deep-throat him like nobody’s business, which is fucking agonizing because Eddie is—Eddie’s a perfectionist, which is not news to anyone. But Eddie hears _ It’s okay if you can’t _ and sees it has a goddamn challenge and somehow opens up his throat and, like, removes his fuckin’ gag reflex. 

Richie loves fucking his face like that, Eddie’s hands wrapped around his thighs, moaning around Richie’s length. He swallows every fucking time, slides up Richie’s body, and kisses him right on the mouth so he can taste himself. Half the shit Eddie likes is the stuff he calls disgusting when they’re talking about it, but Richie thinks he gets off on that, on making a mess of things. Of himself. Richie isn’t going to complain about it, no sir. Whatever Eddie wants, as long as he doesn’t cut his hair.

(He has an entire album on his phone of pictures Bev has sent him, Eddie beautiful and perfect with his hair windswept in a way Richie’s never been able to achieve. Richie loves Bev. She’s the greatest friend he’s ever had—_sorry, Stan, but you never sent me pictures like this._)

* * *

One morning, Richie is in the kitchen, trying to perfect his frittata recipe. Bev heckles him from the table, nibbling on cut up pieces of apple and peanut butter because he’s taking _ forever _ and she’s _ hungry, Richie_. 

He says, “Go whine about it to Lover Boy if it’s that serious.”

She does, and Ben texts him, but only to tell him to send him the recipe when he figures it out.

The front door opens and closes. Bev yells out that they’re in the kitchen without much thought. It’s only Eddie, back from his run. 

He likes to go to the beach and race along the shoreline. Something about the sand being good for his calves, maybe. Richie didn’t pay much attention—_he’s done enough running to last a lifetime_—and really only expressed interest in Eddie’s tiny shorts, which he refuses to let him peel off of him. It’s a _ crime_—it’s a cruel, cruel punishment to look that good and not let Richie taste. 

He glances back at him, coated deliciously in sweat, red shorts clinging to his thighs, pink and tight and clenched. He debates calling 911. Eddie has no right to look like that. He’s going to burn the whole house down, he’s that hot. It will be _ arson_.

“Have a good time?” Bev asks. “I’ve got apples if you want. Richie’s being obsessive again.” To the chef, she says, “It will be dinner time when you finally finish.” 

“Breakfast for dinner is the best,” says Richie. 

“I have literally never seen anyone stress this hard over a frittata before,” Bev quips. “It’s just, like, eggs, right?”

“It’s more than eggs, Beverly,” Richie retorts, waving a spatula at her. He’s wearing an apron that says _ Grab your balls, it’s canning season_. Bev hates it. “It is a lifestyle.”

Distractedly, from behind, Eddie says, “It’s a crustless quiche, not a lifestyle.”

Then: “The run was nice. I got you strings of turquoise at this tent on the boardwalk, Bev.”

“Ooh, I can add them to the neckline of my dress,” she muses. “Or, like, down the sides of my jeans.”

“You should find out if you can set up shop there,” Richie suggests. “Sell your stuff at the market or something.” 

Bev wrinkles her nose. “I don’t have enough stuff for that.”

“You’ve got plenty,” Richie argues. “You’ve taken over _ both _ guest rooms. What if I wanted a third roommate?” 

“They can sleep on the couch,” Bev replies. 

“What if it was Ben?” Richie poses. 

“He can sleep on the couch,” she repeats.

“_Or_,” Richie enunciates loudly, crumbling feta cheese into his pan, “he can sleep in your bed with you. I’ve heard your phone calls, Bev, my darling. Talkin’ about the future and givin’ us a _ try_. Makes my heart all fluttery.”

Bev rolls her eyes. “Beep beep,” she says. “I don’t make fun of you and Eddie, do I?” 

“How could you?” Richie asks. “Look at that guy. He’s short, but he’s basically a Ken doll. Utter perfection.”

“What does that make you?” Bev poses. 

“Unworthy,” Richie answers jovially yet truthfully. 

He does not know how he bagged Eddie. Can’t even look at himself in the mirror long enough to figure out what it is about himself Eddie likes despite Eddie telling him almost daily. It’s a complex he’s working on, feeling unwanted and unwelcome everywhere. He’s not used to it, to someone seeking out his company and attention the way Eddie does. The way Bev does too, asking his opinions on things and making him go to the movies and stupid street carnivals on weekends. 

“Right, Eds? You’re hella out of my league.”

Eddie doesn’t answer, which—_odd. _ Eddie loves to tease Richie and then give him some sort of backhanded compliment. 

Richie twists around, eyes him, staring at a letter, and asks, “Eds?” 

He looks up, giving Richie perfect access to the sun-kissed apples of his cheeks. Eddie’s tan gets darker and deeper the longer he spends in California and it is such a _ good _ look for him. It’s almost like he can’t burn, a fact Richie despises since he turns into a goddamn lobster if he’s under the shade of an umbrella.

But back to Eddie: He almost looks confused, the way he’s meeting Richie’s gaze, lip tucked under his teeth. He lets go, runs his tongue over the grooves he’s left there, and says, “I got into medical school.” 

Bev _ shrieks_. “Oh my god, you did? Oh my god, of course you did, Eddie! _ Eddie_!” 

“You didn’t tell me you were applying,” Richie says dumbly. And then the words make sense in his head, pieced together, and he recovers enough to add, “Wait, you got into medical school? Eds, you’re going to be a _ doctor_?” 

“I—” Eddie starts, then stops, then furrows his brow, reading the letter. “That’s… that’s the plan. I want—” He clears his throat. “I thought about it, back in Derry, when you said—” 

Richie flashes back to the house on Neibolt, Eddie’s open chest being stitched back together by tiny hands. He clutches the countertop, edges digging into his palm. Remembers _ I think you should become a doctor _ and the sheer relief that all of Eddie’s inane medical knowledge finally came in handy. 

“I want to be a pediatrician,” Eddie tells them, in that certain and unwavering way of his. He sounds just like he did when he told an alien clown he was going to fucking kill it before kicking it in the face, just less angry. Quieter. The conviction remains the same. “I didn’t really have anyone on my side back then, you know? I was a victim to my mother and I didn’t have any say in anything and I didn’t _ know _ any better, and I—” He gasps, hard and fast, having forgotten to breathe, and tries to regulate himself. “I just wanna help. I don’t want them to be scared to go to the doctor. I want them to be—to feel safe, when they go. To know they’ll be heard and treated because they don’t feel good, not because their parents decided they didn’t.”

Bev beams at him. “Oh, Eddie, you’ll be so good at it,” she says, supportive and great, the kind of friend Eddie needed when he left Maine. The kind of friend they all needed, back when they were fourteen, and fifteen, and all those years leading up to college. “Richie, finish that fucking frittata. I’m getting the champagne. We’re _ celebrating_.” 

Eddie looks to Richie as she leaves, a question in his eyes. A question out of his mouth: “You think it’s a good idea?” 

“Of course I do,” Richie answers. “Even if I didn’t, you think it is, so it is. Don’t second guess yourself, dude.” He tilts his head to the side, smile broadening. “Should I call you McDreamy or McSteamy?” 

“Fuck off,” Eddie snipes. 

“McFuck Off.” Richie swoons. “My favorite character on _ Grey’s Anatomy_.” He turns around to tend to his food. “I’m really proud of you, you know,” he says, and with his back to him, he misses how Eddie flushes. 

Later, Eddie lets Richie have his way with him, running shorts and all. Richie thanks the turtle god for being a real one and calls Eddie _ Doctor Kaspbrak _the whole time.

* * *

Sometimes Richie has nightmares—the kind of dreams that leave a person shaking and terrified of their own surroundings even as they become more aware of them, of where they are. He sees Eddie in these, every version of him he can create, and he dies. Over and over. Richie can’t save him, can never save him. Is too slow. Is too late. Has his mouth sewn shut. 

He can’t get out of them either, can’t free himself. It’s like he’s stuck. Trapped, more like. His hands are perpetually stained with blood, and no matter how many times he changes his glasses, they’re cracked and making the world a hazy red. 

He thrashes when these happen, kicking out and yelping, constantly calling out for Eddie. Saying things like _ please _ and _ I already did this _ and _ Stan, you promised_. 

In each of them, Eddie tries to tell him he loves him, but he only says, “I fucked your mom,” and then the Losers are pulling Richie away from him even though Richie can’t leave him here. They can. They can leave him. They can leave Richie, too, because he refuses to be parted from him again. Refuses refuses _ refuses_. 

_ I love him_, he wants to tell them, _ can’t you see that? _

And each time, Eddie gently coaxes him awake, reminds him that _ this _ is real, _ he _ is real, they are _ here_. Richie nods, nods, nods, remembers, and checks Eddie’s scars. Runs his fingers along them, slowly but surely fading. Kisses them. Presses his ear to his chest and listens. 

It is always the same. 

It is always _ thump, thump, thump. Alive, alive, alive. _

Richie loves it, the sound of Eddie’s working heart. He could fall asleep to it like those calming sea noises or whatever.

_ Thump, thump, thump. _

_ Alive, alive, alive. _

_ Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. _

This particular night is the same. Richie dreams. Eddie wakes him. Richie checks his body, finds it in working order, and sags. Eddie wraps him in his arms, holding him close, and Richie sighs into his chest. 

“I love you,” Richie tells him, word vomit from never being able to say it in the dream. “Loved you my whole life. Never gonna stop.”

He feels Eddie’s heart ricochet against his ear. He is still jittery even with the confirmation that Eddie is whole, but he smiles anyway, a tiny little thing. “Do I make you nervous?” he asks. 

“Not you,” Eddie says. “Me. I make myself nervous with how much… with how much I love you. It, like—it consumes me.” He slips his hand up the back of Richie’s shirt, presses it against his spine. “It was like I was empty before and now I’m full. It makes me—it’s kind of scary how much I’ve always—even when I didn’t know you, I knew something was missing.”

“Do you practice these things before you say them to me?”

“No, I just say ‘em,” replies Eddie. “I’ve spent my whole life not being able to say what I meant. Being too afraid to, thinking it was wrong. I’m too old for it now. Trying to make up for all the things I never said.”

Richie lifts himself up, looking at Eddie, all messy from sleep. His eyes are alert, though, wide and bright as they look at him. He wonders if he’d been asleep for long before he woke him. If he’d been asleep at all. “You got a lot of things you haven’t said?”

Eddie’s thumb presses against Richie’s cheek bone. His other fingers curl around his jaw. He looks at him, blinks, and looks away, behind Richie and into the shadowy corner of their room. “Loads of things,” he admits. 

Loads of things. Years of things. Richie swallows, understands those three words more than he’s understood anything else, and he graduated high school with a near perfect GPA. 

“In the Deadlights,” he begins, and he feels Eddie’s heart again, building speed. They do not mention the Deadlights. They haven’t since the big reveal back in the Barrens because it’s awful and terrifying and because reality is better than the twisted dream Richie’d been in. “You told me that every Richie was your Richie, that I was it for you. Is that—do you—that’s true for me, I know—“

“It’s true for me,” Eddie answers, the question unspoken between them. The _ Is it always me? Will it ever not be me? _ “I know that I married Myra, but that wasn’t—that wasn’t _ me_. Does that make sense? I wasn’t me until I stepped foot in this town again. Until I remembered you. I was like—“ 

“A ghost,” Richie murmurs, because that’s what he was. A shell of the person he’d been at eighteen. It had taken six other people to put him back together.

“Yeah, a ghost,” Eddie agrees. “I had, like, interests, I guess, but I mainly did what Myra did just to have something to do. I didn’t really have friends but I’d sometimes go out with my coworkers, which was fine, but there were always things that I thought were funny, or, or, or, or—that reminded me of you, or Bill, or Mike, and I couldn’t place it. Why did they make me laugh? Why did I want to tell someone? Why did no one else understand? Why was I declaring a fuckin’ economics degree with a pre-med concentration? It all makes sense now. I feel like… like I have purpose, like all of you guys took who I was and rearranged all my pieces because they were forced into the wrong spots.” 

Richie can’t help it: he caresses the scar again, caresses Eddie’s chest. He kisses the jut of his chin, thinks about how true that statement is. Stan took Eddie and made him whole again right before Richie’s eyes. Took everything that could have ever plagued him, could have been wrong with him, and fixed it. Gave him back his hopes and dreams—his _ future_. 

Eddie huffs out a breath. “You were always better at saying what you meant,” he tells him. “I was always so scared to tell you how I really felt. I just—let you do what you wanted. Never said anything about it, never told you it wasn’t stupid.” 

“You told me in your own way,” Richie replies. “I think I knew deep down, but we were always so scared. _ I _was always so scared. I wanted to get out of there so badly I never thought I’d never be able to turn around and go back.” He sighs. “Never thought I’d want to. If I could do it all differently—“ 

“Richie—“

“No, listen, if I could do it all differently, I never woulda left you behind.” He swallows hard, sniffing. “I should have packed you up with all of my shit. I shouldn’t have…”

“We thought we’d see each other in the winter,” Eddie reminds him. “We thought we’d stay in touch. We had each other’s phone numbers and I didn’t even—I didn’t know what the fuck it was. I never thought to call it.” 

“Would you have remembered me if you did?” asks Richie. He pushes himself up on his palms, crawls up Eddie’s body until they’re nose to nose, Richie all but straddling him. 

Eddie’s hands fall to hold Richie’s hips. “Yeah,” he replies. His thumbs press into the jutting bone beneath his pajama pants. “I think it might have been awkward at first, you know, the way it was with Mike, but our relationship was always different. I think I would’ve heard your voice and just—I would’ve known, Rich, because I’ve always known you. My heart could never really forget you.”

“All those books you’ve been reading have made you remarkably romantic,” Richie says, face warm and heart pounding.

“Hardly.” Eddie scoffs. “I just got a lotta love for you. S’easy to say shit like that.” He slides his hands under Richie’s pants to palm his ass, and Richie wriggles, the fingers cold. “You’ve been doing it since I met you. Always thought it was a joke to you until…” 

Richie squints at him, blinking, and asks, “Until?” 

“Until Valentine’s Day junior year.”

“I didn’t act any differently,” Richie says, thinking back on it. A card he’d made in the art class he thought would be an easy A but was harder than he anticipated. Paying for a dumb romantic comedy at the Aladdin. Hot chocolate with little pink marshmallows from the diner. The same thing he’d been doing since he was thirteen and started pocketing his allowance instead of spending it on every little thing he’d seen at the store. He’d been taking Eddie out on dates without ever really realizing it for years.

“I did,” Eddie admits. “I paid attention to you. Figured out what it meant.” 

“You held my hand,” Richie remembers, “at the movie.” 

Eddie tilts his head, brushes his mouth along Richie’s jawline. “I kissed you after, too,” he says. “You said something stupid about how I looked in the moonlight, and—” 

“And you leaned across my car and—” Eddie cuts him off by doing it, kissing him nice and sweet. If Richie focuses long enough he can almost picture himself there, sitting outside Eddie’s house in his truck. 

It’d been cold that day. Eddie’s nose was freezing against his cheek, but his lips were warm and tasted like chocolate and peppermint. 

“My mom saw,” Eddie tells him. “She kept me home for a week. Even took me to the doctor. She was convinced you’d, like, drugged me or something. Couldn’t fathom that I’d wanted to do it, or that I thought about it all week, or that you’d sneak into my bedroom at night and we’d—” 

Richie sees it clear as day. Him, parking around the corner, climbing the tree, sliding open Eddie’s window, which he left unlocked. Eddie, curled over the homework Stan’d brought over that day, scribbling away at an essay or something. Richie settled in Eddie’s bed behind him, memorized the curve of his spine beneath his shirt, the hair that licked at the back of his neck. He told him about the shit he’d missed that day at school, how Greta and Sally fought over the captain of the basketball team and how Bill told Bowers’ old crew off for picking on Stan. Eddie told him what his mom made for lunch, how he stayed under the blankets and had to act like he had a fever because his mom was convinced he had a virus even though his temperature was normal. 

He never told Richie his mother thought he was sick because she caught him with Richie. He recalls the way Eddie’s hands shook when he ran them through Richie’s hair, when he cupped his cheeks and took their unmemorable—unless you were a boy with what he thought was an unrequited crush—peck even further. He remembers the way he’d sighed into his mouth only because Eddie makes the exact same sound now, _ right now_, when Richie pitches forward and closes the gap between them, effectively ending their trip down memory lane. 

Eddie is soft and pliant under his mouth, wet and slow. He lets Richie kiss him this way and that, humming when he latches onto skin, sucking a bruise beneath his ear. 

“I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into,” Eddie breathes, using his forearms to drag Richie’s pants down his thighs. 

“Nothing else I’d want to get into,” Richie replies. He kisses Eddie again, deep and searching, and bites on his lip when Eddie fists him. “Gotta be quiet, though. Bev’s sleeping.” 

Eddie squeezes, flicks his thumb over the tip. Richie bites down again, hips stuttering into Eddie’s. 

“You’re the one that’s loud,” Eddie reminds him, doing it again. “Shut that mouth of yours for once maybe.” 

“You like my mouth,” Richie murmurs. 

“Mhm,” Eddie agrees, “like it a lot.” 

He kisses Richie through it, holding him by the back of the neck and swallowing his moans, and when Richie comes all over his hand, he takes his fingers between his lips and licks him off, one by one.

* * *

Mike finishes his road trip down the East Coast and spends approximately two weeks in the Sunshine State before he calls Richie.

“This Florida thing,” Mike starts, “I think you may have been right.”

“I mean, I’m always right,” says Richie. “Please be specific.”

He flips through a cookbook, searching for the perfect dessert for Eddie’s birthday, his laptop and black Word doc abandoned on the table. Eddie likes shit with a lot of fruit in it, but Richie is not that sold on pineapple upside down cake.

“It’s boring,” Mike admits.

Richie chortles. “Told you. What got ya? The amount of people in retirement? The golf? Was it the alligators?” 

“It’s missing all of you,” he says. “You busy?”

Richie frowns at the book, glances at his computer, and says, “Nah.”

“Cool,” says Mike, “pick me up at the airport?”

“Like.” Richie pauses. “LAX?”

“Mhm,” Mike answers. “Surprise.”

“_Dude_,” Richie says. “Dude, _ what_, you’re here?”

It is then that he hears the sounds around Mike: chatter and tinny flight announcements and the squeak of suitcase wheels. “Yep. Turns out my dreams have changed. I don’t want to be in Florida; I want to be with you guys.”

“God,” Richie says, rubbing his eye. “Everyone is so pathetic. I’ll be right there. What terminal?”

Mike takes a moment before he says, “Three.”

Richie pulls up to the airport about an hour later, dark sunglasses perched on his nose, and honks twice to get Mike’s attention. He snaps a picture of him as he puts his bags in the backseat and sends it to the rest of them, all of which are off doing grown-up things Richie cannot relate to. Bev is with Eddie, touring the school he’ll be going to next semester, Bill is holed up planning character arcs, and Ben is doing something in Nebraska, probably making another tall building.

_ You’re next, Haystack_, Richie types out.

Out loud, he exclaims, “Thank god you’re here, Mikey, I’ve been so bored lately.”

“You live with two other people,” Mike points out.

“Yeah, but Eddie is going back to”—he shudders here despite the pride warming his heart—“_school _ and Bev hates being interrupted when she’s making clothes. It’s just been me and my thoughts.”

“I didn’t know you had any thoughts,” Mike quips. “Sounds terrifying.”

Richie pushes his sunglasses down his nose and glares at him. “You’re funny, sir,” he says. “Where were you planning on staying again?”

“With Bill,” Mike replies easily. “Just needed a ride, thanks!” 

“You wound me,” says Richie. “If you wanted a chauffeur, you shoulda called Eddie. He has excellent road rage.”

Mike reaches over and fucks with Richie’s hair. “You know I’m teasing,” he tells him. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead, to be honest. I’m doing this new thing where I live in the moment.”

“I’ve got space, if you weren’t serious about hitting up Bill,” Richie offers. “I’ll kick Bev out of the second guest room.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” says Mike.

“She does not need _ two _ rooms,” Richie argues, merging into the traffic leading out of the airport. “She uses it for, like, storage mainly and it is a _ mess_. I can’t believe she can find anything in there. We can turn the den or whatever into her sewing room. We hardly use it.” 

Mike snorts. “You have a _ den_?”

“I have a very large house that used to be incredibly lonely,” Richie replies, “so yes, I have a den, but I also have Eddie and Bev and my life has meaning.”

He focuses on the road ahead of him, so he doesn’t have to see the look on Mike’s face. Mike knows all about loneliness, but it’s a different kind from the one Richie used to experience. Mike remembered them all and didn’t feel like he could contact them until It got bad and honestly, Richie doesn’t like to think about that, about how Mike didn’t even bother to reach out.

Hadn’t he _ missed _them? They’d all been friends, right? Family? Couldn’t they have kept in touch, couldn’t he have, you know, told them anyway, about Derry, and couldn’t they have remained friends through it all?

What if he had? What if Richie didn’t have to spend twenty years of holidays alone, or with his biological family, or so drunk he missed them entirely? Mike could’ve brought them all together earlier, could have made sure that—but that is not Mike’s job, is it? It isn’t up to Mike to make sure they stayed friends, or to fix Richie’s fucked mental state.

_ Maybe_, he thinks, _ we wouldn’t have gone back at all if there wasn’t an opportunity to see each other again after so long. _ Richie wonders if he’d do it if he’d known Eddie this entire time. Is he that much of a hero? Would the promise hold up? Did he really go back to defeat his childhood nemesis or did he go back for Eddie and just end up killing an alien along the way?

_ But that’s not how the story goes, Richie, and you know it. _ The sun bleeds in the sky, dark red and black and brown, and the car horns sound like Eddie whimpering his name. _ You fixed it_, he thinks. _ You’re here. It’s real. It’s over. _

Richie swallows, ignores that train of thought, and makes a left when he’s supposed to. Shakes himself out to ask, “You want to get something to eat?” like any normal adult would do when picking up a friend at the airport. He does not dwell on the past because there is no reason to. He is not missing anything anymore. It’s all up from here. 

“Sure,” Mike replies. He smiles. Richie sees the whites of his teeth out of the corner of his eye and feels infinitely better. Mike’s always had that going for him: stalwart and true, with that grin that could quell all your fears. Ben built homes and Mike made sure those homes were warm. “You and Eddie doing good, I’m guessing? How are the divorces going?”

Mike definitely doesn’t want to hear about how much Richie likes Eddie’s dick, or how he’s mapped out every freckle on Eddie’s back, or the slower, more romantic parts of their relationship. He tells him, “We’re good. I’m very happy,” and runs his tongue over his teeth before he does something like smile foolishly at nothing.

The divorces, though… Richie bites his cheek. “We’re getting through ‘em,” he finally answers, thinking back on the nights of Bev crying and Eddie’s enraged screaming, which he does through gritted teeth in the backyard. “No one wants to come to any agreements. I think it’s just out of spite, but I don’t know either of their relationships enough to confirm or deny.”

This timeline, he hasn’t asked about Myra much. He knows the suitcases will always symbolize Eddie leaving her, but it is clear the situations are not alike. Here, she’s kicked him out and there, he fled. What remains the same is that he wants to be with Richie in the end, so that’s nice. The rest of it? Not so much. There’s a tug of war there, and Myra still cries, but now she sends Eddie emails with links to the rise in STDs in the LGTBQ+ community and gruesome recounts of hate crimes, men killed for loving other men. She even reminds him of Adrian Mellon, beaten and brutally murdered in _ your hometown, Eddie, that could be you_, which makes them all feel really fucking good, considering. 

Bev, on the other hand, has a lot more riding on this divorce. She knows she won’t get the company, that’s all Tom’s, but she wants ownership of her designs—the ones she made before him, with him, and the sketches she’s left behind. It’s lawyers this and lawyers that, and she refuses to speak to him, even though he promises he’ll be quote-unquote _ nice_. She dedicates a lot of time to Richie, so now he’s got an entire new wardrobe and a number of outfits she’s made herself. She even stitched up a couple of Eddie’s shirts, little hearts at his sleeves and, at Richie’s request, a tiny car on his yellow sweater, the one he wears when the AC is too high.

“Must be rough,” Mike murmurs. “Can’t imagine having to go through that.”

“Yeah,” Richie agrees. “I just want it to end already. I want them to be able to start over.” He taps his fingers against the steering wheel, and heads to his favorite diner. “You’d never know at home, though. It’s always just—it’s a good time. We have a good time together. You’ve come just in time for Game Night, too, so get ready.”

“Oh, good,” Mike says. “If it’s anything like the ones we had in high school, I’m sure it’ll be _ great_.”

Richie pokes him in the shoulder. “I don’t like your tone, Michael.”

“You almost killed Stan,” Mike says flatly.

“He was feeding answers to Bill!” Richie retorts, not even remembering the moment until it’s halfway out of his mouth. “While he was on _ my team_! It wasn’t fair I lost Eddie to _ you_, but to have my own teammate _ betray me _ like that? I would not stand for it and you wouldn’t either and you know it. You destroyed an entire game of Monopoly once, dude, don’t pretend you didn’t.”

“Game Night is going to tear this family apart,” Mike says.

“Oh, you know it,” says Richie. “I can’t wait. Bev refused to talk to Eddie for a day when he won Go Fish.” 

Mike clicks his tongue thoughtfully. “What are we playing tonight?” 

“Pictionary, I think,” Richie replies, “or maybe it’s Sorry. I can’t remember. We chose this morning.” He pulls his car into an open parking spot and kills the engine. “C’mon, Mister Librarian, you can buy me waffles.”

“You really like waffles,” Mike comments, following Richie’s lead.

“Yeah,” says Richie, “and I’m getting them with seasonal fruit and whipped cream and you can’t stop me.”

Mike snorts. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good,” Richie says, who pays for both their meals and convinces Mike to get more than just a Caesar salad.

They play at catch up, which is hard to do given how often they talk, and Mike tells him interesting stories about all the people he’s met on his travels, and the places he’s stayed, and the things he’s done. He’d gone to a baseball game in every state that had a team, hit up local farmers markets, and explored libraries. He finished reading all of Bill’s books and sent Ben a postcard from every city he stayed in.

“Did you write him poetry?” Richie asks.

“I thought about it,” Mike admits, “but that kind of assholery is more you than me, so I didn’t.”

Richie decides to stock up on postcards and sends Ben one a week with little haikus on them, mainly about his abs.

(Ben sends him ones back, but instead of poetry, he fills the blank spaces with jokes of Richie’s he finds particularly funny.) 

When they’re finally done eating, Richie has three missed calls from Eddie, a dozen text messages, and a notification that Bill changed the name of their group chat to _ Get Ben to L.A. 2016. _ Bev changed it to _ 2017 _ because _ the year is almost over, Bill, what’s Ben gonna do, drop everything and get here before New Years? _

Ben replies, _ I mean, I could. _

Bill changes the name to _ Get Ben to L.A. 2kNow_.

* * *

No one is against the addition of Mike to Casa de Marsh-Kaspbrak-Tozier. In fact they are ecstatic and Bev wraps her entire body around Mike when he enters, happy to have another sane person in the house, whatever that means. She lives with _ Eddie_. They _ garden_. Richie sometimes surprises her with pastries. Who is insane here?

They all help Bev move her stuff into the unused den, a place Richie’s been using to store his DVD collection, framed movie posters, and the foosball table. Eddie sets up her life-sized mannequin in the corner, drapes a blanket over it because _ it’s creepy, Bev, _ and Mike carefully folds all of her fabrics. Richie takes the television in this room and puts it in Mike’s and unearths all the books he’s collected over the years and lines the shelves with them. He’s got all the _ Harry Potter _ books except for the fifth, _ Pride and Prejudice_, three of Bill’s, whatever Eddie’s read with Ben, _ Lord of the Rings _ and all that accompanies it, _ Game of Thrones _ and the one after it, both of which he never read, and an encyclopedia of the _ Star Wars _ universe. 

Bill comes over later and they spend half of Game Night drinking bourbon and Cokes and hanging Mike’s clothes in the closet. Bill orders pizza and extra garlic knots, and by seven, they’re piling around the island in the kitchen to play Clue, which Richie does not remember ever agreeing to.

Eddie cheats, and Bev is particularly adept at the process of elimination, but Mike sweeps them all. It’s _ Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with the candlestick_, and Bill calls bullshit because Mike spent his whole life pretending to be a detective and this was a _ stupid game to play_. Despite that, they shuffle the cards again, Eddie does not part with Miss Scarlet even though the rest of them swap out players, and Bill wins the second round, Richie the third, and Mike the fourth. Bev throws the tiny figurine at Mike’s head because she’s a bad sport. 

They change games, kill the bottle of bourbon, and waste so much time arguing over the rules of Pictionary. 

Richie says, “There are no _rules_ to _ Pictionary_.”

“Then why is there an entire fucking rulebook, dipshit?” Eddie retorts, flapping the thing in his face. 

“You—you draw a thing, that’s all!” Richie says. “Who needs _ rules_?”

“_Who needs—_Jesus Christ, Richie, how have you survived this long, I can’t believe—“

“I’ve been on the brink of death this whole time without you and your little rulebooks, Eds, I send a prayer to the turtle god every night for bringing me you to teach me the ways of Proper Adulthood—“

Mike leans over to Bill and is not shy about asking, “So, the only difference is that now this is their weird foreplay?”

“You thuh-ink this wasn’t b-before?” Bill shoots back, quirking a brow.

“Touché,” Mike allows. He clinks their glasses together. 

Bev stays out of that one, piling up their paper plates and tossing them in the trash, and makes herself another drink. She rests her elbows against the counter, pops a cold garlic knot in her mouth, and says aloud, “This is just like living in a frat house.”

“’Cept we aren’t disgusting,” Richie replies. 

“I mean, _ I’m _not,” Eddie retorts. “Don’t know about you.”

Richie rolls his eyes. “You leave your socks _ everywhere_.”

“I do _ not_—”

“I found them between the couch cushions,” Bev supplies.

“You leave globs of toothpaste in the sink,” Richie adds, “and I haven’t seen anyone wait so long to do their laundry in my entire life.” 

Eddie scoffs and leans forward to whisper at Mike, “He thinks he’s better than me because he knows how to make Baked Alaska.”

“No, it’s because I do my laundry once a week and know the appropriate amount of toothpaste to put on my brush and I clean the drain out when I’m done in the shower.” 

“It’s Bev’s,” Eddie says automatically. 

“Her hair is _ red_!” Richie exclaims.

Mike looks at Richie. “You know how to make Baked Alaska?”

“He watched _ High School Musical _ once and decided to break the status quo and learn to bake,” Eddie snarks. “Like a mediocre comedian has anything to lose by being on _ The Great British Bake Off_.”

“I have _ never _ seen _High School Musical_,” Richie defends at the same time Bev says, “Eddie loves competition-based cooking shows even though he can’t cook anything but macaroni and cheese.” 

“To be fair,” Bill provides, “it is fuh-uh-uh-ucking delicious. I would live off it.”

“Frat house,” Bev repeats, a little bit amazed. 

“Thank you, Bill, my best friend,” Eddie says. “Let’s play. I’m on Bill’s team.”

“_Hey_!” Richie blurts. “What the _ fuck_, dude.” 

Mike nudges him with his elbow and fixes Richie’s glasses, which have settled crookedly on his nose. “Let’s crush ‘em,” he proposes. 

Richie grins, shoots Eddie the evil eye, and announces, “I’m in love with Mike now.” 

“Yeah, whatever,” Eddie replies, “we’ll see about that.”

* * *

Ben drives down to L.A. for Eddie’s birthday. He brings his dog, who becomes particularly enamored with Bev, as is to be expected, being the pet of Ben Hanscom, and Eddie, which is not as expected but still nice.

She spends a lot of time licking his face, the dog does, and Eddie scratches her ears and lets her curl around him on the couch even though she takes up almost all of it. He tells them his mother never let them get any kind of pet because of the germs and Myra was allergic to literally everything—_so_, and a little shrug. He likes dogs, though, and the sight of the two of them makes Richie’s heart grow three sizes. He Googles _ animal shelters near me _ before he can stop himself. 

He says to Bev, “I think I understand how the Grinch felt.” 

“You want to ruin Christmas?” she asks, mildly horrified, and then sends him a picture of Eddie and the dog napping. The only thing there that really belongs to Richie, in the sense that he has taken over his heart, is Eddie, but he makes it his phone background anyway.

Ben helps Richie make strawberry shortcake, Mike forces Eddie into a tiara, and Audra crushes them all in a very elaborate game of King’s Cup. Bev gifts him with a shirt she’d hand-stitched, Bill FaceTimes Patty Uris when they sing before they eat the cake, and Eddie turns forty surrounded by the people that love him. 

Richie holds hims extra tight, knowing how close they were to not having this at all. 

* * *

Richie types out _ I’m afraid of clowns because when I was thirteen a clown tried to murder me for being gay. If you think the clown panic started in 2016 you should be glad you weren’t there for the real scary stuff in 1989_, looks at it for the space of a breath, and then deletes it.

Then he undoes that, and then deletes it again, just to add a bullet point that says _ clown = gay = childhood trauma = funny_.

“I am like an onion,” he says to himself. “I have many layers.” 

He is trying to incorporate that into his new script, or whatever the fuck he’s calling this. It’s more of a pitch than anything, and it’s a lot harder to write than he thought when he’d told his manager and his agent and every other person on his team that he wanted to do something more authentic. Something _ real_. So far all he has is _ hi, I like dick_, and _ a clown tried to murder me twice_, and _ I’ve been in love with my best friend for decades and he loves me back and no, this is not a midlife crisis, but yes, I’m probably having one. _

So—

He’s doing well.

The rebrand was a _ great _ idea. He really enjoys it. He is a genius. 

Richie drops his forehead to his keyboard, probably adds long lines of singular letters to his otherwise sad-looking word doc, and debates asking Ben what he thought was so good about his old stand up videos—because Ben’s watched those without attempting to mock him endlessly. He sends him a text because he does not want to sound whiny over the phone. He goes back to wallowing, because guess what, world, Richie Tozier is _ not _ funny. Who knew? 

_ I knew_, Richie thinks. _ That’s why other people write stuff for me and I pretend it is relatable and it’s as gross as I am but gross in the wrong ways and_—

“What are you doing?”

“Dying,” says Richie. 

“Oh, good, you’re not busy, then,” Eddie replies. He grips Richie’s shoulders, digs his thumbs into his tense muscles. Richie sighs. “Take me out.” 

“Trash day’s not until Thursday.”

“Ha, ha, ha, you’re so funny, did anyone ever tell you you should become a comedian?” Eddie applies more pressure around his shoulder blades; it’s really unclear if he’s doing this to help Richie out or because he loves Richie’s shoulders. “Take me out,” he repeats. 

Richie twists his neck, peering up at him through one eye, the other buried in his arm. “Where,” he says, not a question because he’ll take Eddie wherever he wants to go. 

“Anywhere,” Eddie says. He’s wearing the shirt Bev made him, tie-dyed with the word _ loser _ and a bright red _ V _ spliced through the _ S_. He looks like he’s going to weave flowers into crowns out back or something. Richie loves how soft all of Bev’s designs make Eddie look, how she’s somehow brought him back to life. He hasn’t seen _ one _stiff collared shirt in weeks. Richie could look at him all day. 

He does, actually. 

“Olive Garden,” Richie suggests.

“Sure.”

“No, Applebee’s.”

“Sure.”

“No, Chili’s.”

“Sure.”

“_No_,” Richie emphasizes grandly, “_McDonalds_.” 

Eddie brushes Richie’s hair out of his face and pinches his nose. “Sure, whatever, I don’t care.”

“You’re a cheap date,” Richie announces. “At least have standards if you’re going to be in love with me.”

“I do have standards,” Eddie replies, and he twists Richie’s words entirely. “I’m in love with you.” He says this like Richie is not known as _ Trashmouth_, like he hasn’t been making jokes about his dick for years, like he’s not the grossest human being on Earth. He says it like, Richie doesn’t know, the sun shines out of his ass or something, like he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to Eddie. And it—

It—

It makes Richie’s heart goes pitter-patter in his chest. He swallows, cheeks warm, and says, “Petition to get you to stop reading those books.” 

“No,” Eddie replies, leaning forward to nose at his cheeks. “How else am I going to get you to blush like this? It’s payback, dude.”

Richie bats him away and buries his face in his arms again. “You don’t hafta try that hard,” he says, practically biting into his skin. “You just gotta exist.”

“Sappy,” Eddie coos, but Richie knows he loves it—a result of the two relationships that defined his entire life. Eddie likes being told he’s a person people want to be with, be near, be around. That they genuinely want him. He’d felt like a nuisance, like a problem, like something that needed to be fixed his entire life. 

He’s never known Richie has always seen him as an answer, but Richie’s working on that. 

“No, but seriously,” Richie starts, “you wanna go on, like, a date? Where you wanna go? What do you want to eat? I think a new movie came out today if—“

“Doesn’t matter,” Eddie says. “Just wanna be with you.” 

“You’re with me every day,” Richie says. “What’s so different about today?”

Eddie’s fingers flutter at the back of Richie’s neck, tucking the tag beneath his collar and splaying against the skin. Richie shivers, and then stiffens when Eddie speaks again. 

“What,” he blurts because maybe his ears are blocked. Maybe he can’t hear correctly. 

He shoots up, twisting in his seat, all but knocking the chair over. Eddie’s grin is easy and wide and his hair is falling into his face in that way Richie loves. He can’t help it—he reaches up to brush the curl out of his face. 

Eddie snatches his hand before he can pull away, kisses the side of it, and repeats, “My divorce got finalized.”

Richie’s brain short circuits. Richie’s brain goes _ My divorce got finalized _ and it goes _ It’s never too late to find someone again _ and it goes _ Back in 1989 it was easy to jerk off to my best friend’s tiny shorts and now he jerks me off while he wears very similar tiny shorts but this time I don’t cry after. I mean, I do but now it’s different. _

Internalized homophobia—that’s something he can write about. 

But, like, not right now. 

“It’s—you’re—just like that?” 

_ Just like that_? Jesus fucking Christ, Trashmouth. 

Eddie says, “Yep,” like this hasn’t been the most excruciating five months of his life, like he hasn’t been guilt-tripped on three separate occasions into answering Myra’s emails or texts, like he hasn’t had to argue with his lawyer about the most inconsequential things. He’d been willing to give Myra everything she wanted—they’d been _ friends _ once—but she was gung-ho on fighting him, probably because she was embarrassed. Probably because she thought she could smother the issue out of him—that’s what she called Richie, the _ gay issue_—and turn him into who she wanted him to be. 

Eddie says, “I’m all yours.”

“Well, you’re yours first,” Richie replies, because that's important. “Not anyone’s. You belong to no one.” 

Eddie shakes his head. “Always belonged to you,” he says, sliding into Richie’s lap. “I wanted to be yours. Didn’t want to be anyone else’s.”

There is nothing left of the cheek wound from Bowers, just a sliver of a scar, thin and unnoticeable. Richie thumbs the skin, makes a pleased sound, and moves his hand to cup the back of Eddie’s neck. “And I’ve been yours,” he tells him. “Even when I didn’t remember you. No one else measured up. No one else ever will. Twenty-seven years and I’ve only remembered you for five months. Yours, the whole time.”

Eddie smiles, kind of shy, teeth digging into his mouth, which Richie nudges at with a knuckle. Eddie lets go and leans forward, kissing him instead. It’s slow and Eddie tastes like vanilla—he and Bev like to collect different flavored chapsticks, which they then lose in the house—and Richie feels the way he licks into him all the way down to his toes. Eddie shifts forward, hooking his foot around the leg of the chair. He twines their fingers together and squeezes and Richie tilts his head and feels like maybe the two of them are sharing the same soul, are becoming one, are finally where they’re supposed to be—

“Guys, this is the _ kitchen_, we _ eat here_—“

“Yes,” Richie says against Eddie’s mouth, “I am enjoying spaghetti in my kitchen.”

Eddie snorts and nips his lower lip. Richie hums a hitched whimper when he tugs it into his mouth and frees his hands so they can drag down Eddie’s back to clutch at the dimples at the bottom of his spine. 

Mike clatters around them anyway, used to their shenanigans, and says, “That’s not the same thing.”

“Mike, I am the only person that pays the bills here, so I can—_hey_, Eddie,” he whines. 

“Mike!” Eddie exclaims, pressing his palms to Richie’s shoulders and looking behind them. If he gets up right now, Richie is fucked, but Eddie is wearing sweatpants so maybe he’ll be in as much trouble as Richie. Still, Richie tightens his grip on his hips and forces him to stay still, which—

Hindsight is twenty-twenty. That’s what they say. 

“Eddie!” Mike replies, just as enthusiastic and ignorant to Richie’s plight. 

“Myra signed the divorce papers!” he says and he’s so fucking happy it makes Richie’s heart hurt. He doesn’t want to think about how he used to be. Did he think it was normal to be so…

Well, he can’t exactly name the emotion since he doesn’t know, but given the way he’s always touching Richie, constantly kissing and holding and eager to spend an hour longer in bed, it seems like maybe he’d spent the past twenty years just coasting. Content in his discontent. Richie doesn’t even know how long he’s been married, but he knows for a fact it’s not supposed to feel like a chore. You’re supposed to _ want _to be with someone forever. That’s the point. 

_ Always wanted to be yours. _

Maybe Eddie’d been like that because he’d always known he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Always knew he was supposed to be here, with his childhood friends, hiding his erection in Richie’s hip—_digging it unfairly into his hip_—while Mike made coffee behind them. 

Richie weighs the pros and cons of moving; if he gets the angle right, he can make Eddie feel as fired up as he does and Richie’s blood is _ boiling_. He wants to touch, wants to get Eddie’s pants around his ankles, wants to shower him in affection. But will Mike see? Mike will definitely see. He’s right behind them. It’s one thing for them to catch him and Eddie making out and another for them to hear them at night. Bev likes to rate them, if she’s up; she bought alphabet magnets for that exact purpose. The fridge still has the number nine stuck right in the middle with Mike’s contribution of _ explain. _

For them to _ see _it, though, right there in the kitchen? Richie’s already horrified. 

“One down, one to go,” Mike all but cheers, like divorce is something great. Something to aspire to. 

And it is, for Eddie, who deserves the chance to be the person he’s supposed to have been. And like always, that person doesn’t have to have anything to do with Richie, but he is infinitely grateful that he does. That Eddie is, as Stan said, in love with him in every timeline.

Thank god for Stan, who wrote them all letters, who knew they’d get here somehow. It was his words that quelled all of Richie’s fears and insecurities. _ It’s the same in each timeline_. It kept him from saying the wrong things and accidentally pushing Eddie away. It saved him precious time, those words, and Richie will never stop being grateful for having a friend like Stan. 

He doesn’t know what he said to Eddie; they all kept their letters to themselves. Whatever was in there, though, it had Eddie crawling into his bed that first night, taking over Richie’s space and stealing all the blankets. It had him kissing him like a promise. It had him sending his divorce papers the next morning. It had him flipping his entire life on its head. 

It led them to this. 

To this very moment. 

To _ My divorce got finalized. _

(His letter ends with _ Don’t let him go this time. _ Eddie keeps it in his wallet.)

Eddie’s mouth moves, but Richie hears nothing, just the white noise that accompanies the grinding of Eddie’s pelvis down on him as he moves his feet. He feels like keening over and dying. 

“And with that,” Mike announces, “I’m out. I’ll be at the library. For an indeterminable amount of time. Bev is also not home. It is just the two of you. Do with that information what you will.” 

Eddie watches him go, listens for the open and close of the front door, and says to Richie, “I love it when you sound like that.”

“Sound like what?” he asks, voice ragged. Strangled. 

There’s a moment where Eddie considers it. Then he whispers, low and husky, “Completely undone,” and a shudder runs down the entire length of Richie’s spine, settling somewhere in the pit of his stomach and the heels of his feet. 

He sniffs, curls his toes, thinks about it. The word. _ Undone_—like he’s not like this constantly. Frayed at the edges. Hypersensitive. 

Every slight touch sends him reeling. He feels like he’s going through puberty all over again, popping boners when Eddie fucking _ smiles _at him or, like, accidentally brushes his elbow. He can’t even remember how he survived middle school once he figured it out, that Eddie was the only one for him. 

And now Eddie is divorced. _ Divorced. _ Not like that had stopped them before, his marriage. Eddie had been mentally checked out the second he’d been kicked out of his house. They’d been _ EddieandRichie _ the moment they locked eyes in Jade of the Orient. There was no one and nothing else, like they were in their own little bubble. (They’ve always been in their own little bubble.)

But this—this is different. There’s nothing holding them back. There are no ties to a past that made them miserable, just twinges of what could have been, fond memories of what was, and promises of what will be. It’s overwhelming, having something to look forward to, being legitimately, completely, and fully _ happy_. 

When he’d told Mike he was, it took him three days to realize he hadn’t been lying. It took him looking at Eddie, wearing a fucking tiara and losing a chugging contest to Audra _ I Was Never A Party Girl _ Phillips for him to come to the stunning conclusion that every positive feeling wrapped around his bones was authentic. He wasn’t faking it, wasn’t smiling because the situation called for it, wasn’t working himself around the clock to escape from his life’s constant dullness. He’s no longer drowning in alcohol, or attending every party he’d been invited to for a five hour distraction, or taking long depression naps. 

He’s so fucking present it _ hurts_, but he wouldn’t change it for anything. He likes waking up now, even if it’s at the crack of dawn. He likes doing mundane things, if only to watch Eddie do them too. Hell, he fucking _ bakes _ and Eddie licks batter off his fingers like he isn’t worried about the spread of salmonella. It’s thrilling. Eddie’s tongue is a godsend. 

What the fuck do people say when they’re in love? Something about reality being better than dreams? It’s so fucking stupid and Richie will admit this to no one, but they’re right. Why waste time asleep when he can be here, doing this, or even anything less exciting? He’d sit in the driveway and watch Eddie fix a car engine. He’ll listen to him read his textbooks out loud, for fuck’s sake. 

He’s been in love with him his entire life. His entire goddamn life and—and look at him now. _ Look_. 

He is still hot and aching and it’s confusing to think he can be this turned on and this emotional at the same time. His heart is in his _ throat_. And when he blinks back at Eddie, who has never stopped staring at him, he feels a prickle in the back of his eyes—_for fuck’s sake_, he thought he’d moved past this crying thing. 

He reaches up to pull his glasses off his face but then thinks otherwise and drops his hands uselessly at his sides. Eddie smiles at him, bumps his nose, and presses their foreheads together. “Whatcha thinkin’ about?” 

“You,” he answers.

“That’s what you always say,” Eddie says softly. 

“Yeah.” Richie clears his throat. “Always thinking about you.”

Eddie hums. “Yeah? What about me?”

“Uh,” Richie bleats. “Just that I love you and I am happy you came out here with me.” A pause. “And that you don’t mind us living with our friends.” 

“I’d go with you anywhere,” Eddie admits, “except maybe back into the sewer.” 

“Yeah, fuck the sewer,” Richie agrees. “Where do you want to go now? What do you want to do?”

Eddie answers with a kiss that’s filthy and slow and gropes Richie’s dick through his pants. He chokes and Eddie giggles, or Richie thinks he does. He’s not exactly sure. 

“That’s what you want to do?” He pulls away to ask. “I thought you wanted me to take you out.” 

“Take me to bed,” Eddie amends, nipping at Richie’s jaw. “I want you to fuck me.”

“What about the wining and dining?” Richie asks, even as he starts to bat at Eddie’s wandering hands, using his own to grip his face and tilt it. 

“Skipping to the good part,” Eddie replies. At Richie’s indignant squawk, he adds, “We can go to McDonald’s after.” 

Richie huffs out a laugh, says, “Like I’m really gonna take you to _ McDonald’s _ to celebrate your fucking divorce. _ Honestly_.” 

He pushes Eddie’s chin up and back, and licks down the length of his neck, where he grazes his teeth over the jut of his collarbone. Eddie exhales shakily and drops all of his weight down on Richie’s lap. His hips are in the perfect spot for Richie to grab, shifting him so he can tug at the pockets of his pants, so his slow hip thrusts make Eddie groan. 

“No,” Eddie blurts, “not on this fucking chair. You’re going to fuck up your back and I’ll never hear the end of it.” 

“Then get off me,” Richie orders, still holding him, still moving, “or I will not care about fucking up my back and it will be your fault for telling me you’re a free man now and—“

“I’m not _ free_, I’m just divorced,” Eddie says over him. “I’m your… your—whatever we are, whatever this is, that’s what I am. Completely off the market.”

“Oh, oh, are we boyfriends, is that where this is going, are you asking me out—“

“No, I am not _ asking you_—it’s a little too late for that, I think, given everything, like… like I think we’ve moved past that stage. We’re like—like, I don’t know, we’re something else.” He swallows. 

Richie watches the bob of his Adam’s apple, mesmerized by the motion, wanting to bite. To lick. To continue marking up that neck, like he’s been doing. Eddie looks so good with those fading purplish bruises around him like a necklace, like a—a collar. Proof that he’s real and he wants this and Richie gets to have him. 

Eddie adds, looking right at Richie’s face, “We’re something _ more_, you know?” 

“Up,” Richie commands. “Get up.” 

He does, but Richie doesn’t let Eddie get too far, latching on again and slipping his hands up the back of his shirt. His skin is warm to the touch, like that of a blush, perfect for his fingers to dig into as he pulls him against his chest. 

Eddie stutters around a breath, pushing onto his toes to kiss Richie on the mouth, and then they’re moving backwards, Eddie like he’s some sort of pointe dancer, until they’re stumbling into their bedroom. 

Richie takes a moment to think _ their _ like he always does. _ Their _bedroom, where he finds Eddie asleep, where they brush their teeth, where all of their things intermingle: bodies, clothes, shoes. He breaks away from the kiss, trails his hand from hip to face, and nudges at Eddie’s mouth until he opens up, and has him wet his fingers for him. Eddie’s tongue is lascivious, cheeks hollowing, and the pretty pink climbing up his throat is a picture against the yellow of the walls. 

Eddie blinks at him, eyes dark and shining, and he fumbles to touch Richie back. Richie jerks his hips forward, grazing against the tent in Eddie’s pants. Slow rutting follows, Eddie holding Richie in place, hands fluttering from his sides to his thighs then back to beneath his pants, gripping the fat of his butt cheeks. He moves him the way he wants, twists his hips, and _ bites _down on Richie’s hand when he gets what he wants, an insistent slide against his dick.

Richie forgets to say, “Ow,” and slides his fingers out of Eddie’s mouth with a wet _ pop_. The ridges of teeth are ingrained there, by the knuckles, red and deep. 

He looks at them, remembers times when Eddie would bite him for no reason—when he told a particularly bad joke, for one, or when he had his face in his neck, refusing to let Richie relax—and wonders when they ever thought they could be nothing more than friends. His entire sexual awakening was due to Eddie’s fucking short shorts, and Eddie used to _ whine _ if anyone took his spot next to Richie at the lunch table, in the car, on the hammock, during sleepovers. 

“Jesus,” Richie mutters, because what the _ fuck_, why is he thinking about teenaged Eddie when he’s got the fully grown, fully willing adult version keening against him? 

“What?” Eddie asks, and his lips are pink and swollen, just from sucking on Richie’s fingers. 

Richie breathes sharply, harshly, and averts his gaze before he does something stupid like ask if he’s turned off from marriage forever after Myra. You know, on the literal _ day _ he’s become a divorcee. 

He says instead, “Tell me what you mean by us being something more,” and wraps his slick fingers around Eddie, thick and long and leaking. 

“You know.” Eddie gasps, stepping on Richie’s toes. 

“I don’t,” replies Richie. “Tell me.” 

“But you _ know_,” Eddie argues, forcing his pelvis forward, dropping his forehead to Richie’s shoulder. He is tongue-tied and hot, mouthing at the fabric of Richie’s shirt. His dick jumps with the addition of Richie’s lazy grind against him; he lets go of Richie to shuck his pants down his thighs, giving himself up entirely to him. 

“I _ don’t_,” Richie repeats, tightening his hold, _ squeezing. _Eddie is slick and smooth in his hand, wet from a combination of his own saliva and pre-cum, and Richie lets go, letting his hand wander farther back. 

Eddie mewls when Richie circles his hole, touching but not, light and feathery. Richie presses down with his thumb, Eddie’s breath hitches, his legs widen, and Richie lets go. 

It’s nonsense that comes out of Eddie’s mouth, a babble of Richie’s name, and Richie does it again. Lets go again. 

“Richie,” Eddie breathes, “stop.” 

“‘Kay,” says Richie, who knows Eddie means the opposite of what he’s about to do. He drops his arms to the side even though his fingers itch—they _ beg_—to be inside him.

He waits. 

Eddie bumps his knee into his, once, twice, three times. “_Richie_.” 

“You said stop.” 

“Stop _ teasing_,” he insists. “I’m gonna—you’re killing me.” 

“Mm,” Richie hums. His gaze rakes over Eddie, even as he glares at him. It’s not as effective as he’d like it to be, but what can be, when he’s halfway to fucked out? He can hardly find the browns of his eyes, the pupil is large and all encompassing. The color in his cheeks is delicious, high and turning red, and his mouth is begging to be kissed, but Richie will do no such thing. “_You’re _ killing _ me_.” 

Eddie doesn’t speak, just reaches to touch him, like that’s what Richie wants. He bats him away even though he feels himself straining in his pants, hard and uncomfortable, and Eddie lets out a frustrated little sigh. 

“What do you—if you don’t—” Eddie trips over himself, sinks his teeth into his lip. He blinks, and blinks, and blinks, and Richie tugs idly on his hair. “_Richie_,” he whines. 

“All worked up, huh?” 

“Mmhm.” Eddie wrinkles his nose, steps even further on Richie’s toes, crushes their bodies together. 

Richie shivers. “You gonna tell me now? I can stand here all day.” 

“I’ll do it myself,” Eddie warns. 

“Nuh uh,” says Richie, grabbing Eddie’s wrists and holding them in one hand. “Tell me, Eds,” he murmurs, backing him up, sliding their feet, Eddie’s on top of his, back until Eddie’s hitting the bed. “I’ll give you whatever you want if you tell me.”

“But you _ know_,” he says again, insistent, even as he scrambles back, pulling at Richie to follow after him. 

Richie settles between his legs, which spread wider to accommodate him. “I don’t know anything,” he says grandly. The fingers of his free hand twitch. He wants to touch. 

“Yeah, because you’re fucking stupid.” Eddie wraps a foot around his back, shoves, and brings Richie against him, chest to chest. “You’ve known your whole fucking life,” he snaps, “and now is the time you wanna play this game?” 

“Hey,” Richie says, wounded, “you _ said _ it. Sorry I want to know what it means.” 

“But you—” 

“Know,” Richie finishes. “Sure. Tell me anyway.”

Eddie sighs. “Let go of my wrists,” he tells him. Richie does. He brings his palms up to slide through Richie’s hair, guiding his face up to his, where he kisses him, long and slow, tongue licking at his bottom lip. “You’re my best friend,” he says, soft and low, like it’s a secret. “You’re my favorite person in the whole world. You’re the only person I’d ever want to do this with.” 

“You’re pretty good at it for never—” 

“You wanted to know so bad, shut up, I’m talking,” Eddie interrupts. 

“Sorry,” Richie mumbles. 

“We’ve always been like this, _ which you know_,” he says, knocking at Richie’s glasses, “and you’re just being _ annoying_. I just—when I thought about my life after high school, when I thought about leaving Derry, you were always there. I never once thought you wouldn’t be. It was laughable, honestly, because, like, where would I be? _ Who _ would I be without you?” He swallows. “Do we have to have this conversation now?” 

_ Yes. No. Yes. _“What do you want?” Richie asks.

“God,” Eddie whines, “anything. Everything. I don’t care. Why are you wearing clothes?” 

“Distracted by your strip tease,” Richie answers. He leans over to lube his fingers up at the same time Eddie tugs at the collar of his shirt, and it’s a whole song and dance, trying to prep as he is manhandled. 

But he gets there, and he only gets caught in his shirt once, and Eddie saves his glasses from falling off the bed, and he’s teasing at Eddie’s hole again, endlessly amused at Eddie’s wriggling. It is not helping, no matter what he thinks. 

Eddie blurts, “I always wanted to spend the rest of my life with you,” and Richie shudders. Richie feels as undone as he did before, and nothing’s fucking happening to him.

“I still do,” Eddie breathes, “for fuck’s sake, Rich, can you fuckin’ _ move_?” 

“I—yeah,” Richie says, and his fingers are kind of just—they move as if they aren’t connected to his brain, one, then two, and he creates a rhythm that Eddie seems to appreciate. 

Appreciates it enough that he keeps talking. “I never imagined my life with, like, Bill in it all the time, you know?” he asks, bucking up when Richie hits his sweet spot. 

“Are you really fucking talking about _ Bill _right now?” Richie asks, splaying his palm over Eddie’s hips to keep him still. “You want Bill to be the one three knuckles deep in your asshole?” 

“No, shut the fuck up, I never wanted Bill to fucking touch me,” Eddie all but gurgles. He lifts his head up, elbows digging into the mattress. “What the fuck. I meant that I loved the others but I knew we wouldn’t be together forever, we’d move other places and do other things and we’d still—we’d be Losers, but we wouldn’t—I never thought that about _ you_. You were just always gonna be there because at ten I decided that. Because I’ve always loved you different. Loved you like this.”

“With my fingers in your—” 

“Shut _ up_,” Eddie snaps, “and keep… keep doing that, and would you fucking touch me or do I have to do that too?” 

Richie laughs. “You’re so mean to me.”

“Good thing that gets you off then,” Eddie grumbles back, and then drops back down on the mattress. 

“So at ten,” Richie starts, changing the course of his fingers and scissoring Eddie open, slow and steady to match the pace of his fist around his dick, “you were imagining me doing this? Can’t say I even got that far by thirteen.” 

“Oh my _ god_,” Eddie says.

“Good or bad?” 

“Shut up, I don’t know,” Eddie replies. “Can you—I need—” He scrubs his hand down his face, bites into the web of flesh between his thumb and index finger. “I wanted the divorce to go by faster than it did.” 

Richie gets that. He’d wanted it too. Wanted that look off of Eddie’s face. Wanted him to be the person he was always supposed to be. “Yeah,” he starts to say. 

“No,” says Eddie, which makes no sense. “Don’t want your fingers anymore. Want you.” He tries to move around Richie, tries to get his heels beneath his waistband. 

“You good?” Richie asks.

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie breathes. He sits up to watch Richie take his pants off, licks his lips, and meets Richie’s gaze. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” he says again. 

“You can,” Richie tells him. “C’mere.” 

Eddie crawls over to him, loops his arms around his neck, and climbs into his lap. “Is this fine?” 

“Yeah,” Richie says. “Just—lift yourself up for a second, it’s gonna—”

Eddie pushes himself to his knees, grips Richie’s shoulders, and lets Richie line himself up. 

“Okay,” Richie says. “You can—you can go—slow and—” 

He swallows, the feel of Eddie sliding down him filling him up from the inside out, and he grabs his hips, steadying him. They stare at each other, a moment of heated contemplation, and then Eddie is surging forward to kiss him, messy and sloppy, all teeth and tongue. There’s something else there, too, something Eddie hasn’t said, but Richie can taste it.

“You want,” Richie starts, breathless, his joints aching but in that impossibly good way, “or should I?” 

Eddie’s still mouthing at his face, getting used to the feel of Richie inside of him, and he licks at the skin by Richie’s ear, teeth closing around the skin of his lobe. His breath is hot against him, his skin flushed and sweaty, and he says, “You’re my forever is all I’m tryin’ to say.” He pulls away, leans back on his palms. “Is that enough for you?”

“Yeah,” Richie breathes. “More than enough.” 

“Cool,” Eddie says, and his smile is wide and toothy, cheeks dimpling. “Now please fucking move.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did eddie and richie really need to have a serious conversation while eddie was trying to get dicked down? no but i'm the author so what i say goes


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took me so long to post because i didn't want to finish it. this dumb clown movie literally revived me. i haven't been this creative in years and haven't finished a fic since maybe 2007, when i was in the seventh grade. kinda sad to see it go, but proud that i've managed to write something i don't fully hate! 
> 
> thank you for reading this even though it was a wild ride, very touch and go. no one knew where it was headed, not even me half the time. you should see the note i have on my phone, it's so long and confusing because i change my mind every two seconds. like if you were not me you wouldn't understand a thing. there's a line that literally says SPICY and i don't know what it means. i hope i did it though. seems important if it were in caps like that.
> 
> anyway,,,, without further ado, i present the end of this emotional rollercoaster:

A picture of Patty Uris lights up Richie’s phone, effectively cutting off the playlist of Christmas music he blindly put on. On his screen, she’s cheek to cheek with Eddie, both of them wearing Mickey ears from their trip to Disney in October. She’d come for Halloween. He drops what he's doing, answers on the third ring, and attempts to balance the phone in the crook of his neck. “Hey, Pat.” 

He must sound busy because she asks, “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“No, I’m just—”

Eddie snatches his phone, slowly slipping down his shoulder. “He’s trying to beat Mike and Bev in a gingerbread house decorating contest,” he tells her. “Hi, Patty.”

“Hi, Eddie,” Richie hears. “Are you all there?”

“All but Bill,” says Eddie. “And Ben. He’s in Nebraska.”

Richie debates the placement of his gumdrop, glances at Mike’s expertly iced windows, and sighs. “Put her on speaker, Eds,” he requests, then decides to pipe the shingles on the roof. “What the _ fuck_, Bev, did you give your people _ clothes_?”

Bev retorts, “It’s winter. They're cold. This one has a scarf.”

Eddie puts Richie’s phone on top of one of the boxes, tells Patty she’s talking to all of them, and goes back to eating the tiny chocolate balls that came with the gingerbread.

Mike’s fingers are sticky with frosting. “How’ve you been?” he asks Stan’s wife.

“Good,” Patty says, “or as good as I can be. I read Bill’s book, the one you said was about Stan, and it’s very much not.”

“Right,” Richie replies. “Eddie, can you turn this for me? That book had maybe three accurate Stan facts, and one of them is the chapter where the guy does shrooms and hallucinates. Granted, he doesn’t hallucinate an army of dead children, but Stan saw, like—what was it—”

Mike says, “He didn’t hallucinate. He just cried into my sheep.”

Eddie snorts. “He loved the sheep.”

“We all loved those things,” Richie says. “It was such a shame when you had to kill them. Remember when that one I really liked had to—”

“That’s why you don’t name them,” Mike interrupts. “I told you not to.”

“You could’ve just let me _ keep _ it.”

“Where’d you put it?” Eddie asks, genuinely curious. “Surely your parents would’ve noticed you had a sheep.”

Richie shrugs, trying to stick a peppermint to his structure. It slides off. “It’d be fine, they’d never notice,” he says. “Lenny coulda stayed in the backyard.”

“_Lenny_—”

Bev says, loud and clear, “See what I have to deal with, Patty?”

“You chose this lifestyle,” says Richie, “please never forget that.”

Patty laughs, a pretty, tinkling sound. “Sounds like you guys are pretty busy.”

“Not really,” Eddie tells her.

“That’s because he’s not helping,” Richie accuses. “He’s just eating all my candies.”

“I ate one of Mike’s gingerbread people,” Eddie supplies. “I’m not picky.”

Mike’s neck snaps up. “Wait, what?”

Bev giggles as he counts his cookies. “What are your plans for the holidays?” she asks Patty. “When is Hanukkah this year?”

“It starts on Christmas Eve,” Patty says. “That’s why I was calling, actually.” She pauses, like she’s nervous, maybe, and Richie stops trying to stick the mint above the tiny door. Hands it to Eddie, gives his full attention to the warbling voice in Georgia. “I was wondering,” she begins again, “if you’d all like to come here. For Hanuk—uh, Christmas.”

Eddie sucks on the mint, looks from Richie, to Mike, to Bev.

In Richie’s mind the silence that follows lingers and lengthens, and he can only hear the echo of sadness in Patty’s tone, the underlying loneliness. The holidays are especially terrible, he remembers; this is the first time in a long while he doesn’t have to think about that. The first time his house is decorated, and he’s got those, like, advent calendars, the ones with the chocolates in them. Bev bought those, and it was Eddie’s idea to have this decorating contest even though he’s not participating, and Mike got them all the ugliest sweaters at the thrift store downtown. He’s happy now, and he’s forgotten all about the people who aren’t.

He answers her, though he’s not sure if anyone else has. “Of course,” he says.

“To Georgia,” Patty clarifies.

“Yes,” Richie says. “Atlanta.”

“Ben and Bill and Audra, too,” she adds.

“I’ll call ‘em.”

Mike says, with the certainty of a man who called seemingly six strangers and told them to return home, “They’ll come. We’ll come.”

“Oh,” she says. “Thanks. It’s just that—” Her voice drops off, but Richie hears it, what she doesn’t say.

“I know,” Richie says. “You don’t have to explain. I-I know.”

They all do—Mike, and Eddie, and Bev. They know what it feels like to yearn for something they can’t have, to want something they’re unsure of. Bill and Ben, too. They understand what it’s like to have found a family and then lose it, even if all the pieces aren’t there. And Patty is one of them in the way Stan was, a Loser in her own right, who misses her husband as they miss their friend.

“I’ve never celebrated Hanukkah before,” Eddie says around his peppermint. “My mom never let me go to Stan’s.”

“Oh, you don’t have to,” Patty says immediately. “We can… I’m only half, so—”

“If you celebrate it, we will too,” he tells her, and she makes this sort of—this pleased sound, a half-sigh like she’s relieved they agreed, as if she thought they wouldn’t.

_Losers stick together, doesn’t she know?_

Eddie tells her how he’s decided to judge all of their gingerbread houses and lays out the criteria he has, based on icing, candy placement, and creativity while Richie looks up flights to Atlanta. The earliest they can get there without breaking anyone’s bank is… Richie flicks through the options, toggles days and times and airlines—they can leave in three days.

Bev helps them pack efficiently, rolling shirts and sweaters and pants up tight to save space in their suitcases. She keeps Eddie from bringing two (_it’s a week, Eddie, how many clothes do you need?_), convinces Bill he’ll only need three pairs of jeans, reminds Richie he’ll need pajamas, and somehow manages to get them all on the plane in one piece. She snags the seat next to Audra before Bill can and the two of them share a plastic cup of red wine and read magazines the entire flight.

When they get to Stan’s, it takes Richie a moment to put his things down, to regulate his breathing. The house is just so painfully him, even from what he sees on a surface level. It opens up with a spacious foyer and extends into what looks like two separate living rooms. There’s a dining room to his left and a sprawling staircase Bill and Eddie are already trudging up, whispering to each other as they had the entire flight, but Richie is more focused on the little things he sees all around. The things that stab at his heart and _ remind _ him.

Puzzles Stan had completed and glued together, framed on the wall. An entire shelf of Bill’s books, _ Joanne_, and _ The Black Rapids_, and _ The Attic_. _ Birds of Prey_, the one with the Stan character, too, even though Stan hated it. One of the jackets over the chair has the Rogan&Marsh tag on the inside. It’s Patty’s, but Stan definitely bought it for a reason.

Richie drops his bag and winces, hoping he didn’t break anything inside, when his gaze catches on the pictures on the mantle. Patty has strung it with garland, glittering silver and gold in the light. There is their wedding photo, both of them gorgeous and happy, and Richie wishes he could’ve been there, the same way he was there for the bar mitzvah. They’re the kind of family that puts up their baby photos, too, so there is tiny Stan, and tiny Patty, and a group shot of what looks like Patty’s sister and her husband, holding a toddler. And then there is—

His heart constricts, shrinks, like someone is squeezing it.

It’s them.

It’s _ that _summer, the last one with Bev, who is grinning on her tiptoes, one arm around Bill and the other around Ben. Stan has his arms crossed with Mike’s hands on his shoulders from behind him, and Eddie is on the side, pretending he’s upset with the way Richie is clinging to him. He doesn’t remember who took it, or where they are, but maybe it was Richie’s mom, who loved his little band of friends even if they were loud and messy and constantly tracked dirt into her kitchen.

Then, of course, there is another, one without Bev because she moved, and they’ve all graduated high school, a miracle in itself, but it’s the other picture Richie is more focused on. He can feel the magic in it, like it’s been preserved in time. He wants to reach in and touch it, pull Stan out by his collar and bring him back to life.

“He was so proud of you guys,” Patty says at Richie’s shoulder. “Always had something funny to say. I always wondered why he never called or invited you here, or—” She clears her throat. “He said it was never the right time.”

(Mike and Stan, always waiting. Not knowing the Losers would probably drop everything if they’d called. If they’d reached out before It.)

Richie swallows and taps the corner of the picture. “This summer changed our lives,” he tells her. “It—we wouldn’t be who we are without it. Sometimes I wonder if…” _ if it was worth it. _He doesn’t say that.

“That was when—?”

“Yeah,” Richie says. Patty knows. Audra knows. It took them forever to explain because it seemed so—if you weren’t _ there_, if you didn’t see it yourself, how could you believe? But the magic lives on in the wives of the Losers and they understood without many questions. The alcohol helped too, Richie guesses, in the way that it opens the mind. “The seven of us. That was the last time we were all together like that.”

Patty places her hand on his shoulder, a light, tentative touch. “I found some more of his things,” she says softly, “when I was cleaning out the attic. D’you want to—?”

“What kind of things?” Richie wonders if she can see how much he aches. 

“Things I think maybe you had no idea were missing,” she says. 

He follows her upstairs, past where Ben has joined Bill and Eddie’s conversation, seated on one of the beds in the guest room, and Richie stares for a moment. He always does, mesmerized not only by Eddie, but by the others, too, when they’re all together. There was a time when he thought he’d never lose this and over and over he’s amazed that he’s gotten it back. He’s amazed, quite frankly, that it is slowly starting to feel like he hadn’t lost it at all.

Patty leads him into a separate room full of boxes. “I’ve never felt like opening these before,” she tells him, “but when I invited you here, I got the sudden urge to see what was inside. You can look. Take what you want.”

“But—”

“The Stan in these boxes is not my Stan,” Patty says. “He’s yours. If you want it, you can have it.”

She leaves him, finding Mike and Bev in the hall and asking if they wanted to help make dinner. She is going to make latkes.

Richie doesn’t know what they say, but it is highly unlikely they’d say no, given how the four of them work as a unit back home. He steps lightly towards the boxes, suddenly afraid, and lets the murmuring of his other friends wash over him. He can’t hear a single thing they say, but it’s reassuring as he tugs things out without really looking at them.

And when he does— 

His heart is a mangled thing climbing his throat, trying to flee. 

There’s the bird book, the one Stan carried around like a third arm, and the cover is somehow still as dirty as it was in 1989. There’s Mike’s varsity football jacket—he’d been, what was it, he’d been a fullback, maybe—and one of the friendship bracelets Bev had made all of them, faded with time. Richie had worn his for so long, always wondering where the hell it came from but never having the heart to take it off. There is an entire sketchbook of Bill’s, crude drawings of fingers and faces, unfinished portraits of the Losers, one of Bev that’s so realistic Richie expects her to start talking at him. One of the books Ben loved is in there, and when Richie flips through it there are little notes, things Ben liked, and parts he thought Stan would.

“Holy shit,” Richie murmurs, unearthing Eddie’s old fanny pack. He unzips it, expecting to see a myriad of medications, but only finds the scrawl of _ Edward Kaspbrak _ in his mother’s handwriting.

For some reason, he wants this, so he sets it aside.

Then he’s taking out his old joke book, which he’d fucking forgotten about, though he knows, somehow, if he opens it, he won’t find that many jokes at all. He shouldn’t, but he looks, and there is half a punchline about—he can’t even read it, because then it goes into a fucking _ poem _ about Eddie, which he does not want to read, _ no thank you_.

(It’s a song actually, from his short-lived interest in learning the guitar.)

Stan mentioned he went to his shows, and the proof is there in the tour shirts he’d bought, ranging in years. One for each set. Richie grips those, wonders if Stan ever wore them, but can’t imagine this Stan doing that, and puts them aside. He finds the baseball glove from Stan’s two year stint on the Derry team, and an old scarf from the time Richie took up crocheting to slow his brain, which did not work, obviously. There is a bunch of hand-folded notes with his name over them, most of them from Richie, but a lot from Eddie, who wrote on one_ don’t you dare show this to Richie_.

It’s been, like, twenty years, so Richie unfolds it. _ What the fuck Stan_, says Eddie. _ Why does Richie look so good today??? _

_He doesn’t_, says Stan. _ He wore that shirt yesterday._

Eddie replies _ Fuck off. _

Stan says _ xoxo_.

At the very bottom, like he scribbled it haphazardly, Eddie tells him, _ love you too dumbass_.

God, Stan _ would _ keep nonsensical notes they’d passed each other, the sentimental piece of shit.

Beneath those, in this box, Richie finds the yearbooks. There are two, one from the eighth grade and the other from senior year, and he grabs at that one, dropping it into his lap. The cover is a mixture of the Derry school colors, tie-dyed in a swirl with their graduating year stamped in the bottom corner.

He opens it, heart pounding. The front page is, of course, a picture of Sally Mueller and Greta Bowie, arms around each other and smiling, all done up in their dumb cheerleading uniforms. There is a small note on the page after, sending love and wishes to the children who couldn’t make it this far, the ones who died in Its reign of terror, though the editors of the yearbook wouldn’t have known that much. Richie does.

He brushes his finger along the words, thinks about Georgie, and Eddie Corcoran, and Betty Ripsom. Thinks about all the kids who weren’t in their grade who didn’t make it past ten, eleven, and twelve. Thinks about the bigger kids, like Patrick Hockstetter, who _ sucked_, who ended up in those sewers too. He knows, if he goes far enough to look at the student photos, that the graduating class is a lot smaller than it should have been, and it will go on like that for years to come.

Until this year. Or maybe the year after, when It is no longer a force to be reckoned with. There is a silver lining there, in the shit that happened to them all. Children will get to _ live. _

And maybe all of this is worth it—the nightmares, and losing Stan, and the years of forgetting—maybe the fact that Derry can be full of children again, snot-nosed and rude and running amuck, making memories and living dull, normal lives without fears of clowns and death at every corner… Maybe that’s enough. Maybe somewhere in there, the things they lost along the way were merely misplaced, waiting for them to come back. Maybe they were never really lost, because when you love something, it never really leaves you.

Richie finds a picture of Eddie smiling with Bill, and Stan at second base, and Ben at the library. Richie’s peppered in there too and he kind of hates seeing himself, but he remembers spending time in the music wing, or dragging Eddie and Ben to drama club meetings, or succumbing to his teacher’s peer pressure and joining the goddamn art club.

There’s one picture of him and Eddie, Eddie wrapping him up in a hug that he knows ended up in a headlock, but caught like this, it just looks like they like each other’s company. Richie bites his lip, rips it out, and flips to the back of the book, where everyone would’ve signed.

Stan never let that many people sign his yearbook, Richie remembers, because he didn’t care about anyone or their thoughts on him. The Losers did, though, and they took up _ pages_.

He can see Eddie’s _ Stan!!!!!!! _ and Bill’s block letters of _ Stan the Man_, and Ben’s _ Stanley_, because he took yearbook messages very seriously. Even Mike signed it, though he did it upside down and Richie can’t read it. He knows it was at the Barrens, on the last day, where they trekked to symbolically burn all of their school shit before getting drunk on the wine Richie had stolen from his parents’ fridge. Mike leaned against a tree while they laughed and wrote them a bunch of meaningful shit, probably knowing then that’d he’d stay in Derry and they’d all leave him behind.

He finds his own messy handwriting, distinguishable by the lowercase letters because Richie couldn’t be fucked to capitalize anything.

_hey asshole_, eighteen year old Richie says, _ stop reading over my shoulder you know i can’t be nice to you when you’re watching. i don’t know what to say to you that you don’t already know and if you read this out loud to anyone i’ll kill you. i can’t believe we only have so many days left together when i used to think we had so long and i still can’t believe we’re all going our separate ways. it feels weird for us to do that after everything. my life has revolved around all of you for so long i don’t know how i’m supposed to be me without you. dude you’re my best friend and i know that i make fun of you literally all the time but it’s only because i don’t know how to be nice without turning it into a punchline but i think you like that. thanks for always putting up with my shit and for hitting me with a reality check when i needed it (which i did a lot, let’s be real). you’re the man, stan, and don’t think i’ll ever forget how fucking insane you actually are. you can hide it all you want but you’re just as crazy as the rest of us. i love you, man, and you better not bail on coming back for winter break, i still have to—_

Richie stops there, the thought of believing he’d see them all again resting heavily at the bottom of his heart. It sinks slowly until it gets to his stomach and makes him nauseous. He swallows, inhales, exhales, and tells himself he will _ not _ cry.

He doesn’t listen.

His words go on for the remainder of the page, spilling out onto the back, and Richie has a startling recollection of sitting in seventh period Calculus, rotating between listening to the final review and writing this out. Stan’s sitting behind him, being the nosy little shit he is, and Eddie’s to his left, rolling his eyes and copying out notes for equations he knows Richie doesn’t understand.

Present day Richie sniffles, shoves his glasses up into his hair, and wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater. He feels like a fucking idiot, missing high school like this, like he hasn’t made something of himself, and rips his own message out. He doesn’t need the whole book; he just needs this, and Eddie’s fanny pack, and the collection of polaroids at the very bottom of the box. He even takes the finished sketch of Bev, thirteen and freckly, and thinks of putting it on the fridge back home.

He feels so much like Ben as he folds up the page and shoves it in his pocket. He thinks he gets him now, holding on to a signature for twenty-seven years, not really knowing who it was, just that it made him feel good. _ Better_.

Then he heads back downstairs, following the sounds of his friends, his family, until he’s in the kitchen, watching them laugh over overflowing glasses of wine.

He ruffles Eddie’s hair as he passes by, tossing him his fanny pack. “Look what Stan was holding hostage all these years,” he says.

“Oh my god.” Bev laughs.

“Aw,” Ben exclaims, picking it up. “You used to carry Neosporin for me in here.”

“And tweezers,” Eddie adds, slinging it around his waist. “You were always getting splinters.”

Bill snorts, chewing on a cube of cheese. “Wh-what are you doing?”

“Filling this with candy,” Eddie says.

“Obviously,” Audra chides her husband, stuffing a handful of chocolate gelt inside. “You want candy canes? I’m giving you candy canes.”

Eddie says, “Only the tiny ones. I don’t want broken pieces in here.”

“Do I look like an idiot, Eddie?” Audra asks. “Here. Have some of these.”

Mike laughs. “If only Sonia could see you now, using this for absolute evil.”

“God,” Eddie giggles, “she’d have a full-on episode if she saw how much sugar is in here.”

Richie side-steps them all to make it over to Patty, leaning against the counter by the sink. He’s not sure what she’s got cooking up for dinner besides the obvious, but there are a few pots and pans on the stovetop and the room is heating up as she uses the oven. He wraps an arm around her, presses a soft kiss to her cheek, and says, “Thanks.”

“I hope you found what you were looking for,” she replies.

“I didn’t know I was looking for anything until I found it,” he tells her honestly.

“Stan had a habit of doing that,” she murmurs. “He always had the answer before I knew what the question was.”

Richie squeezes her closer, watching the others see how much candy they can shove in a thirty-year-old fanny pack, and lets Patty settle her weight against his side. 

Eddie’s wine glass has been emptied twice, constantly refilled by Bev, who likes to argue with him when he’s drunk. Richie knows he’ll have to play catch up when he sees Ben finish off his, and Audra steal Bill’s after finding hers without.

“Show us your traditions,” Richie says after a while.

“Stan always loved playing Dreidel,” Patty tells him, “which is, like, a kid thing, but—”

“Teach us,” Richie interrupts, because nothing is too childish for the Losers.

And they play games, and Audra gleefully teams up with Patty to _ roast _ Bill about the Stan book, and Ben learns how to make matzo ball soup. Eddie makes some fancy spiked hot chocolate with candy cane rims with Bev, and they induct Patty into Wednesday Game Night. Mike bakes cookies and painstakingly writes out recipes so Patty can have them. Eddie yells at Richie to stop trying to convince everyone to move into their house when he catches him telling Patty he’ll do some renovations if she wants to come to Los Angeles. (Richie coos back _ our house _ and Eddie throws a pillow at him.) 

A week later, a new picture is added to the mantle: Patty and the Losers, all decked out in matching Christmas pajamas Mike unearthed from God knows where.

The house warms inexplicably on the last day they’re there, Audra and Patty and Bev tucked into each other on a loveseat. Bill’s with Mike on the floor and Ben, Richie, and Eddie are tangled together on the other couch. They’re watching a dumb holiday movie on Netflix. 

Patty says, “Y’know, I think this movie would be better if Richie were in it.” 

Eddie chokes, laughing, and Ben slaps his back. 

“What,” she says, “at least he’s funny. I can’t tell if this is supposed to a tragedy or a comedy. If Richie starred in it, I would know I am supposed to laugh.”

“High praise.” Richie stretches out to clink their mugs together. “Please call my agent and tell him that. Maybe he’ll get off my back about this comedy show I have no desire to write.” 

“I’ll write it,” says Bill. 

“I can’t let you ruin Richie’s career, honey,” Audra says, and Richie thinks he’s a little bit in love with all the Loser wives. “You can’t end anything for shit.”

“I _ know _ Richie!” Bill insists. “I can flesh out an hour-long special if he gives me the shit he wants to talk about.”

“Isn’t the point of Richie writing his own material _ Richie _writing his own material?” Mike asks.

Patty pats Bill’s shoulder with her foot, covered in a fuzzy sock. She and Eddie match. “You knew Stan too, somehow, and _ Birds of Prey _is awful.” 

Bill cranes his neck back, looking at his wife upside down. Then Patty, then Bev, who is hiding her grin in her elbow. He slides down until his back is on the floor. “I’m moving my flight up,” he announces. “I can tell when I’m no longer wanted.” 

“Kay, bye,” says Audra. 

Richie watches Patty smile and lean her head against Audra’s shoulder. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to move into a house I haven’t bought yet?” he asks her for probably the eighth time.

“God, Richie,” Eddie complains, “you can’t just uproot _ everyone_.” 

“_I _didn’t uproot anybody,” Richie retorts. “Y’all saw me again and decided to leave your lives and runaway with me. Like, shit, I know I’m amazing, but you’re gonna give me a complex.” 

“That implies you don’t already have a complex,” Eddie says, “and your complex is your overinflated ego. I’m just using you.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Richie replies. “I can tell when I’m being used for my body.” 

“Oh, not for that,” Eddie quips. “For your money. You’re just my sugar daddy.” 

“Mine too,” Mike adds. 

“Love you, Daddy,” Bev calls.

Richie frowns, slurps at his drink, and says, “When we get back, I’m kicking you all out.” 

“Oh, you can all stay here, then,” Patty offers. “Who needs Richie, right?” 

“An absolute _ traitor_,” Richie throws at her. She smiles and puckers her lips, blowing him a kiss he catches and pockets. 

The warmth returns, all but wrapping Richie up in it, and he knows without a shadow of a doubt that somewhere out there, Stan is happy his two worlds finally collided, even if he’s not alive to see it.

* * *

The weeks turn to months, January, February, and March blurring by in a flurry of birthdays, activities, and long-winded phone calls. Richie turns forty-one and reworks all of his jokes, Bill gets three chapters into his book before he decides to scrap it entirely and turn it into a screenplay, and Audra disappears for two of those three months, tied up in a role she is tight-lipped about. Ben begins to create designs for intricate treehouses, places where kids can grow and love and feel safe, Mike snags a job at their local library in the children’s section, healing all the parts of him that have been broken back in Derry, and Eddie spends all of his time either at school or studying, attempting to fast-track his education.

Bev’s lawyer comes in clutch one night in February, grabbing hold of her sketches—past and present—and half of the money that’s in Rogan&Marsh. The Losers in L.A. get completely and utterly smashed when the divorce papers are finalized. When the story gets out, Beverly Marsh trends for weeks, becomes an advocate for domestic abuse victims, and is a face of the _ #MeToo _ movement when that ball gets rolling. She unveils a few of her designs, modeled by college students near Eddie’s school, and sells out in two days when she agrees to market them. 

They all take a step in the right direction, and the scars they carry, both literal and figurative, fade until they are nothing but a bad memory.

* * *

“Pick up,” Richie demands, staring at his computer screen, “pick up, pick up, _ pick up_.”

It rings and rings, subjecting him to the sight of his face instead of Eddie’s, and he sighs, clicking out of the FaceTime. His full Word doc stares back at him, littered with comments of Bill’s. He’s actually a pretty good editor, and he’s educated himself enough on how Richie delivers any material he’s given, so he knows how to stack the jokes. He does have the audacity to suggest Richie not talk about Eddie so much, but this rebrand is literally _ about _ him, so—what’s he supposed to talk about? _ Bev_? He’s got one Bev joke in here somewhere, but it’s the Eddie content that’s golden.

He’s not going to tell them all he’s gay, or bi, or whatever label he is without mentioning _ Eddie_.

Richie clicks through to his iMessages, opens his chat with Bill, types, _ Audra is too good 4 u I hope you know_, and then searches for the little spaghetti emoji.

Their last interaction was, like, seven hours ago. Eddie’d sent him the link of some Buzzfeed article ranking Richie’s shirts from ugly to ugliest. The last picture had been of Eddie wearing the cactus one they’d decided was Third Ugliest, captioned _ For some reason this looks better on Eddie. _

Eddie sent the emoji with the hand over its mouth and then disappeared by the time Richie responded.

Now, he ignores his potential script, and sends Eddie a series of angry red faces and about a million exclamation points. _ rude_, he says, and _ i miss you :( _ and _ i’m gonna steal ur socks. _

He waits for those three little dots because Eddie hates sharing his socks, finds it incredibly gross, which is—it’s wild, since it can’t be any grosser than the logistics of getting fucked up the ass, but whatever. Richie makes an alarmingly devastated face when Eddie doesn’t reply—he hasn’t seen him properly in _ weeks_, fuck midterms and six class course loads and blah blah _ blah_—and closes his laptop to go rifle through Eddie’s top drawer.

It’s so neat compared to Richie’s, who throws all his stuff in there without folding it and often spends several minutes in the morning looking for stuff that matches. All of Eddie’s socks are rolled up into little balls, so he grabs the first pair he can find. They’re striped things, and Richie wouldn’t be surprised if they were toe socks. He’s in the process of figuring that out when he catches what’s under them, hidden away like Eddie’s keeping a secret.

One hand is balled into a fist, covered in stretchy blue and green material. The other pulls out a pile of old movie tickets, ranging from the weird _ Fifty Shades _ sequel to what looks like—is that _ sixteen_—

He spreads them out, counts them.

Fourteen, actually, so he’s off a little. They’re dated starting from last month to, more recently, three days ago. Twice a week, almost, if the calendar in Richie’s mind is correct.

_Fourteen times._

“If you so much as put my socks on, you get to buy me another pair,” Eddie’s voice says from the doorway. “I was _ driving_, sorry I couldn’t answer your whiny video chat, there was no reason to steal my—”

Richie turns on his heel, looks at Eddie like he’s never seen him before, and blurts, “How many times did you see this Disney movie?”

“Which one?” Eddie asks, like there isn’t just _ one _ Disney movie out right now. He drops his backpack in the corner; it lands with a heavy thud, full of Eddie’s textbooks.

“This one,” Richie replies. He holds up the tiny paper square, movie title stamped across it. The corner is bent. He saw this on February twenty-second at three twenty in the afternoon.

Eddie cranes his neck and shrugs. “Looks like you know the answer to that already,” he says, trying to act as nonchalant as possible, but his cheeks heat up just a bit, pink in the apples.

Richie blinks.

Eddie adds, “I like the dinosaur.”

“I _ am _ the dinosaur,” Richie responds, the emphasis louder than intended.

“Yeah,” says Eddie. “Thhhhh—that’s the appeal.”

Richie’s tongue feels too big for his mouth. He works around it. “You saw a movie for children fourteen times in the past, like, two months because you like the dinosaur, who is voiced by me.”

“Yep.” Eddie nods. He kicks his shoes off, leaves them in the middle of the room, and tugs his socks off Richie’s hand. “Good movie. Nice message. I think it should get an award or something.”

“I didn’t even know you were interested in—” Richie shakes his head. “_Fourteen times_?”

Eddie’s answering smile is bashful, his teeth digging into his bottom lip. “I’ve missed you,” he says. “I haven’t seen you in, like, a month, and half the time I only ever get your voicemail if I try to talk to you, or we just miss each other, like before, and I know I can—” He huffs, closes his eyes. “It’s _ embarrassing_.”

“Yeah, it is,” Richie agrees. “You are singlehandedly funding a large corporation and a movie theatre chain because _ you miss me_.” The joke is shit, clogged up in his throat like that. He’s never had anyone willingly want to see anything he’s done before and to think Eddie is paying, like, twelve-fifty to rewatch a movie about an animated dinosaur? Its target demographic is, like, _ ten year olds_.

Eddie looks away, then back to him, holding his gaze like he always does. “I like your voice,” he admits. “School is stressful and sometimes I feel like—I don’t know, like I’m too old to be there, and you calm me down. If I can’t get ahold of you, like the real you, I know you’ll be there.” He clears his throat and reaches out to close his drawer. “I am very attached to that brachiosaurus.”

Richie holds his face, tangling his fingers in the curls by his ears, and steps forward. “I think I hate you,” he says. His pounding heart says the opposite.

_If I can’t get ahold of you, like the real you, I know you’ll be there_. For _ fuck’s _ sake.

“Mhm,” Eddie says. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you stealing my sweaters.”

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you buy them a size too big,” Richie retorts.

“Well, I noticed you stole them, so they might as well fit you correctly,” Eddie returns easily.

Their noses brush when Eddie pushes himself onto his toes to slot his mouth over Richie’s. It is a kiss that is slow and sweet, lips brushing like they’re being reacquainted, and perhaps they are. They’ve lost a lot of the time they had before: January ushered Eddie into a situation that made him equal parts excited and anxious and the months that followed had Richie working double time on his standup and taking the odd jobs his agent thought he’d be good at, which ended up being a lot of voiceover work. They were lucky if all four of them were in the house at the same time these days, much less Richie and Eddie finding more than five minutes to just _ be_. Richie feels like he’s being welcomed home with this kiss, melting back into Eddie.

Against him, he asks, “When’s the last time you slept in this room?”

“I dunno,” says Eddie. “Three days ago, maybe? I fell asleep on the couch again last night.”

“I know.” Richie twists a particularly fluffy curl around his finger. Eddie makes a contented noise in the back of his throat. “I tucked you in.”

“Ugh,” Eddie mutters. “You should’ve just woken me. My back’s gonna be fucked because of you.”

Richie smirks at him, eyes roaming his face and hands traveling down his sides, settling where he tapers off into his hips. “That’s not the only way I can fuck up your back.”

“Is that right,” Eddie shoots back, hardly a question. He guides Richie backwards, nudging him along with his knees, until he’s in his lap, and kisses him again—wetter, hotter, faster, like he’s teasing him with what’s to come.

Eddie is warm and real on top of him, and Richie’s hands do not know where to touch, where to linger. This is better than all the dreams he’s woken from, only to find Eddie’s side of the bed cold to the touch. He doesn’t remember the last time he had to spend so long in the shower, just jerking himself off to the mere _ thought _ of someone else. God, he’s missed this—missed the way Eddie feels, the way he tastes, the way he smells. Knowing he’s there, even though, objectively, Richie always knows where Eddie is at any given time.

Apparently he’s always at the movies, which he just found out, but that’s neither here nor there.

The hot drag of Eddie’s tongue down his neck pulls a whine from him, scattering his thoughts. He breathes, “Fuck, I’ve missed you,” and lifts his chin so Eddie has better access to his throat. Eddie bites down on the skin beneath his jawline, sucking it into his mouth, and presses Richie back into the mattress, hovering over him.

“Me too,” he replies, pulling away.

Richie’s fingers tug at the zipper of Eddie’s pants, shimmying them down his thighs to his knees. “I miss you all the time, though,” he adds, palming Eddie through his boxers, feeling him grow against him. “It’s like I’ll never stop, I don’t think.”

Eddie shivers when Richie finally closes around him, presses his mouth to all the places he can reach. Cheek, ear, jaw, collarbone. Says, “Don’t think that’ll go away. We spent so long missing each other.”

Richie agrees somehow, a low hum, working Eddie harder. His thumb flicks over his tip, spreading Eddie’s eager wetness along his length, pumping once, then twice. Three times and Eddie babbles back at him, fired up and tense, and Richie doesn’t need to ask to know he’s missed his hands as much as he’s missed Eddie’s.

“But we’re here right now, right?” Eddie says, shakily unbuttoning Richie’s shirt. “There’s nothing to miss. We’re both—we’re right here—_Richie, I swear_—we’re here, together, like we’re supposed to—” He gasps, jerking his hips into Richie’s tight fist. “Like we’re supposed to be,” he continues, breathless and choppy. “There were so many things I wanted to do when I was younger and so many things I wasn’t able to because we—because of Derry—and I get to do all of that now, and I get to do it with you, and I get to be the person I think I was always meant to be but had f-forgotten—”

Eddie pulls back and away from Richie’s hand, panting. “Stop stop stop,” he insists, and then he’s staggering off him, tugging at Richie until he can settle between his legs, eye level with his cock. It twitches under the intense look in Eddie’s blown pupils.

He blinks up at him, there on his knees. Richie props himself up on his elbows to meet his gaze, loves how wrecked Eddie can look at times like this. How he’s a mess because of Richie, how he’s _ his_, even after all this time. “You know, when I was ten,” Eddie starts.

Richie lets out a strangled sort of sound. “Are you really talking about being ten when you’re _ that _ close to my dick?”

But his mind travels to the Kissing Bridge back home, where two different versions of their pining exist, mere feet from each other. He finds himself thinking about them, about _ R+E _ and _ Reddie_, and what that meant for them then. What it means for them now.

Eddie leans forward and wraps his mouth around him, his tongue running along the underneath. He hollows out his cheeks, presses forward until Richie hits the back of his throat, and then lets go with a wet _ pop. _ “Mm,” he says, probably to be a little shit. He presses Richie’s legs wider, uses a shoulder to keep him in place. “I just want to be with you always,” he tells him, “if that’s something you’re interested in.”

“You know it is,” Richie replies. He reaches out to play with Eddie’s hair, soft beneath his hand, threading the curls between his fingers. “I signed up for that the moment I met you. I never liked anyone as much as I like you. Can’t imagine my life with anyone else. Couldn’t, actually. No one else ever came close.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, and he smiles, teeth white around his lips, red and swollen. “I’ve just—I made a lot of poor decisions, you know? But with you, it feels like I can make up for all of them right now.”

“You’re so far away,” Richie complains. He pushes off the bed until he’s practically on top of Eddie, and the two of them stay like that, staring at each other. It’s almost as if Richie has never seen him before; he takes the pad of his index finger and traces the planes of Eddie’s face, applies pressure to the flesh of his lip. Holds his cheeks in his palms like he’s got the most precious thing in the universe between them. “You are,” he tells him, kissing him on the mouth. “And you don’t have to do it all right now. You have all the time in the world.”

Eddie’s eyes are bright and his cheeks are pink. “_We_,” he rectifies. “_We _ have all the time in the world.”

They fuck on the floor, which actually does wonders for Eddie’s back pain.

* * *

Ben calls up the Losers group chat at some ungodly hour.

Richie is the last to join, shuffling into the kitchen and hooking his chin over Bev’s shoulder. “This better be good, Haystack,” he grumbles. “Do you know what time it is?”

In one of the little boxes on Bev’s computer screen, Bill says, “It’s eleven thirty.”

“Exactly,” Richie replies. He winks at Eddie, who rolls his eyes. From the looks of it, he’s back at the library—or is that Starbucks? He has no idea, but Eddie’s got his headphones in and his brows are furrowed in that intense way of theirs when he’s concentrating.

“I’m only calling to inquire about how Hotel Tozier works,” Ben says. He does not bother to greet Richie. “Do I have to make a reservation in advance?”

“Oh my god,” Richie bleats. “Is this real? Is this a drill? Bev, pinch m—_ow_, not that hard, you animal!”

Eddie answers with, “It’s three hundred and fifty a night, but we’re all booked. You can choose to bunk up with one of our other residents, if you’d like. We’ve got our one female friend and a black librarian. Only one of them makes good French toast. I’ll let you guess who.”

Mike snorts, hidden away in the office at the library. “It’s me,” he says.

“I _ tried_!” Bev insists, slapping at Richie’s thigh. “I make up for it in omelets, since someone can’t flip them correctly.”

“Always attacked in my own home,” Richie complains. “I cook everything else and this is how I’m treated? You never want omelets anyway.”

“I’ll eat your omelets, Rich,” Ben says pleasantly. A smile plays at the corners of his mouth. Richie wants to pinch his cheeks.

“Did you guys know Ben is my one and only best friend?” Richie asks the group, wandering away to make himself coffee. “He’s always so nice to me. Haystack, you can have whatever room you want. I’ll kick out Bev and Mike if you want both.”

“_Or_,” Bill says loudly, drawing their attention back to him. “Richie is not the only one you can stuh-stay with. I know everyone else is o-over there at his—are we ruh-really calling it a h-h-huh-hotel?—but with me, you won’t have to share a room with anyone and I can put an entire bottle of wine on your pillow instead of a m-mint.”

“What, is this a competition now?” Richie demands. He spills a spoonful of coffee grounds onto the counter.

“Yes!” Bill calls back at him.

Richie meets Bev’s eyes, says, “He doesn’t like that I’m more fun than him.”

She laughs.

“You are _ not_—” Bill begins as Ben says, “That does sound awfully appealing, Bill. You home?”

A beat too long, then: “No.”

Richie chortles, presses the start button, and says, “Look at that: Bill makes a compelling offer and isn’t there to deliver. Who woulda thought the great William Denbrough could do such a thing?”

“Hey,” Bill shoots back, “I helped you finish your script, didn’t I?”

“I did most of the work!” Richie shouts at him. “How’s _ your _ script coming along?”

“Terribly,” Bill admits. “Will you come over luh-later to help me? I’m stuck.”

“You want help from _ me_?” Richie asks, coming back around Bev to look Bill in the eye. “Pray tell, what have I done to deserve such an honor?”

Bill frowns at him, pressing his lips together. Pries them open to say, “Audra says the main character is basically you, so—” He splays his hands out, palms open. “Might as well have you tell me what you’d do in this situation.”

“I demand you write in an Eddie character and give me a beautiful whirlwind romance.”

“I plan to kkkkkkill you off in the last three pages,” Bill threatens.

Eddie groans. “Everyone would _ hate _ that,” he says, “even more so than usual, if you give him an Ed—if you give him any kind of gay relationship. Stop killing your gays, you heathen.”

Mike points at the screen, agreeing with Eddie with a flap of his finger.

“I’d survive a horror movie anyways,” Richie says, “or did you forget I made it out of Its ugly ass lair relatively unscathed?”

“Can’t forget, you’re right in f-front of me,” Bill says.

“Okay, while they do that,” Ben starts, “can any of my other friends pick me up from the airport?”

Eddie sucks on the straw of his drink, lets go, and replies, “I can.”

Ben beams at him.

“If Bill’s pillow wine doesn’t work out, I am not opposed to bunkbeds,” Mike tells him.

“Honestly, I’ve always wanted a bunkbed,” Ben admits, looking away from Eddie. “I’m sold. We can go to IKEA together.”

“Excellent,” says Mike. “Bill, you can build it.”

“What? Why me?”

“You have very durable hands,” Eddie offers.

“_What_,” Richie blurts.

Eddie ignores him, adds, “I get the dog. Rich, you can sleep on the couch.”

“First Bev, now you?” Richie whines. “My two lovers, out to get me after I opened my home to them.”

Ben moves his phone camera to show off his dog, sitting at his feet, tongue out. When she sees everyone else, her tail wags, hard against the floor of the airport. “She’d probably sleep between you and Richie,” he says, “but if she sees Bev, it’s game over. She loves Bev.”

“I wonder where she gets that from,” Richie grumbles.

“I’m leaving you for Bev,” Eddie announces. “Sorry you had to find out like this. I _ need _ that dog to sleep with me.”

Richie gasps theatrically, turning to glare at Bev, who looks up at him and shrugs. “Close proximity and all,” she explains. “You know how it is.”

“I can’t believe I let you live here rent-free and you go ahead and _ steal _ my boyfriend,” Richie snaps at her. “Bill, I hope you have enough guest rooms for two others. Only Mike lives here now.”

Bev places a hand on Richie’s arm, pats it. “The heart wants what it wants,” she says solemnly. “Surely you understand that.”

Richie sniffs. “I considered you a friend, Beverly Marsh,” he snips. “Can’t believe Greta was right about you all along, you boy-stealer.”

“Sometimes your bullies tell the truth.”

“I don’t know what this is about,” Eddie says, “but my heart wants that dog, mainly. I’ll sleep with whoever has her. I’m not picky.”

Richie grabs his coffee when it is done brewing and makes a dramatic exit. “Fuck all of you,” he says cordially, “except for Ben and Mike. The only two people I care about. If you need me, I’ll be sulking and throwing all of Eddie’s stuff out the window.”

He disappears back into his bedroom, settling into his bed, and sips at his coffee. He can hear Bev continue her conversation with the Losers that remain in the video chat. It sounds like only Eddie has left, since he’s, you know, about to go pick up Ben.

Richie’s phone vibrates by his knee. He picks it up, opens the text from Eddie. It’s just the kissy face emoji. He types back, _ I thought this was gonna be a dick pic. disappointing_.

It lights up with another text maybe seven minutes later, and there is Eddie’s pretty, pink penis held lightly in his hand. He’s in the bathroom, blue and green tile all around him like he’s using a stained-glass window as a backdrop. Richie saves it, says back _ I love you!!!!!! _

Eddie texts, _ yeah you better. you’re the fucking worst. I expect you to do something about this later. _

_your wish is my command, my prince_, Richie answers.

In the end, Bill’s house wins, and Ben stays there. He promises not to impose too long, just until he finds a place of his own, and spends most of the first month going back and forth between L.A. and Nebraska anyway, getting his affairs in order. Audra loves the company regardless and he fills the house when she jets off to this country and that, landing roles left and right as her popularity skyrockets. It’s a good choice in the end; he keeps the house from feeling too big and too lonely in her absence.

Ben only moves out when he asks to Bev to live with him, fourteen months into their relationship and two years after he made the choice to relocate to California. They don’t go that far, picking a house in a neighborhood exactly in between Bill and Richie, five minutes in one way and seven in the other.

* * *

Eddie has a night class that almost always interferes with Game Night, but he bails one week in May, only because it’s the anniversary of the day Mike called them all back to Derry.

“I can’t believe it’s been a year,” Bev says, nursing a glass of rosé. “It feels like I’ve spent my whole life with you all, like all the bad stuff was just—nightmares. I can hardly remember what it was like in the years between then and now.”

Richie nods, chewing on a piece of steak. “I was really fucking lonely,” he admits, “but I didn’t know why.”

“I did,” Eddie tacks on. He stabs at his helping of baked beans, trying to spear them through the prongs. Richie reaches out to hold his knee, and Eddie jumps, unprepared. He’d been dodgy all day, like the memory of his Life Before was careening down on him. Richie wants to calm him down but doesn’t know how. “I mean, I didn’t, not really,” Eddie amends quickly. “I just—there was something about the way my life was that didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t understand why some things gave me really intense feelings—”

“He means me,” Richie cuts in. “Did he ever tell you he couldn’t watch anything I did because he had a really big crush on me?”

“Still can’t,” Bev confirms. “When we watched his old shit, I thought he was gonna pass out and die. I was like, _ Eddie, you are sleeping with that, _ and he was all, _ yeah, I know_. It was fucking astounding.”

“Uh.” Eddie pretends to stab Richie’s hand when it gets too close. “I’m trying to say you all are very important to me. I didn’t realize it was Roast Eddie Day.”

Ben pulls up the calendar on his phone. “No, that’s tomorrow, bud,” he says, flipping his screen towards him.

Bill and Audra giggle at each other, and then Bill feeds her a piece of watermelon.

Eddie rolls his eyes.

Mike clears his throat, puts down his fork. “I’m really glad you all came back,” he says, “and that you stayed through it all. I know it wasn’t easy.” He makes significant eye contact with Richie, who looks away, not eager to reminisce on all that was Derry, 2016. He’d _ just _ stopped having nightmares about it, thank you.

“I’d do it again,” Bev replies, softly. “Anything for you guys.”

“Same,” Eddie agrees.

“Best friends I ever had,” Ben adds. “You could ask me to murder the president and I would.”

Audra wrinkles her nose. “Be careful. We may need a hero like you one day.”

Bill licks his lips. “I, for one, am glad we got to reh-eh-remember this time around.”

Richie wriggles his hand into Eddie’s. Squeezes. “Me too,” he agrees. “But if it went poorly, I hope we’d be able to forget it, as much as I love y’all.”

Eddie scoots over, presses his nose and then his lips to Richie’s cheek. “It didn’t,” he reminds him. “We’re all right here. It’s not the Deadlights.”

“I know,” Richie whispers. He does. Really. There’s nothing in the shadows. There are no birds trying to grab his attention. No Stan, besides the memories, and that’s getting easier and easier to accept. There’s only the present and future, things to cherish now and look forward to later. Friendships and happiness and people who love him. People who he loves. People he’ll never let anyone or anything take from him again.

“I know I’m not really part of this,” Audra begins, and she waves away the indignant look on Bill’s face, “but I’m really glad you’re here on a superficial level. Bill can finally write relatable characters and end his books. And, of course, Bev, you’re a lifesaver, dressing me for all my events.”

Bev blows her a kiss.

Ben looks to Eddie. “Today is Roast Bill Day.”

“Every day is Roast Bill Day,” Richie corrects.

Bill shrugs. “I’ve accepted it,” he says, lifting his glass. “It’s an hon-hon-honor to be roasted by you all.”

“Aw, cheers!” Audra exclaims, laughing.

The seven of them toast to that and to each other, to all the weird things that have happened to them, and all the good that’s come of it. They spend the rest of the dinner telling stories about their respective days, which somehow include Richie’s attempt at making snickerdoodles, Mike’s rambunctious storytime at work, with the three year olds, and Eddie’s argument with some twenty-something girl in his Anatomy class, who, in his words, _ really has no fuckin’ business in medical school if she’s so shifty about vaccinating her kids. _

“But does she have kids right now?” Mike asks.

“No,” Eddie says, “so I don’t know why she needs to talk about this all the goddamn time. I wanna strangle her.”

“So violent,” Richie coos, pinching his cheek. “So cute.”

Eddie slaps at his hand. “Watch it. I’ll strangle you too.”

“Please do,” Richie replies, if only to see the embarrassed flush cross over Eddie’s face. “You know I’m into that.”

Ben snorts, but Bev rises, piling empty plates atop of each other. “Yep,” she agrees. “We all know that, unfortunately.”

“Hey.” Richie brandishes his spoon at her. “You rated it a nine, if I’m not mistaken.”

“I stand by it,” says Bev, “but I truly wish I did not know about it at all.”

Mike comes back out, takes platters and bowls from Audra. “Sometimes you think you can just enjoy a nice Tuesday night, but then you’re listening to Richie and Eddie. It’s like being in college.”

“I can sexile you, if you want,” Richie suggests, patting him on the shoulder. “I want more wine. Anyone else? Audra, I know you pretend you can’t drink as much as me, but we know that’s a damn lie.”

“Fill her up,” Audra requests. “I want to be as drunk as possible when I watch you all play charades.”

Richie balks. “We’re playing charades? Who decided on _ charades_?”

“Me,” Ben provides with a teasing grin on his face. “What—don’t think you’re up for it? I thought you were, like, an _ actor_”—he says it with an accent, something between British and Australian—“or something these days.”

“Hardly.” Bill scoffs. “He does v-v-voiceovers. That’s hardly acting.”

“Uh, fucking _ rude_,” Richie snaps at him. “Don’t come crawling to me when you want me to star in your dumbass horror movie.”

“Bill, be nice,” Audra chastises. “Voiceover work requires a lot of skill. I think you’re great, Richie.”

“Thank you.” Richie kisses her square on the forehead. “You are my favorite Denbrough.”

“Naturally,” Audra replies. She sticks her tongue out at Bill.

Back inside, Mike sets off to wash the dishes, Ben at his side drying, and Audra wriggles away from Richie to hop onto the counter. She rips up a piece of lined paper from one of Eddie’s notebooks and starts scribbling on each piece, folding them precisely and dropping them into a bowl on her left. Bill tries to peek at them, but she sticks her leg out, keeping him away, even as he tickles at her foot.

Bev presses a glass of wine into Richie’s hand. He takes a sip, looks around the room, and spots Eddie on the couch, bent over his phone. He makes his way over, dropping dramatically next to him, all but sitting on his leg. “Hiya,” he greets, using his free hand to ruffle at his hair.

Eddie locks his phone as quickly as he can, looks up, and smiles. “Hey,” he says. “You on my team?”

“Always,” says Richie. “We’re gonna crush ‘em.”

“I don’t know about that,” Audra provides, entering the room. She takes a seat in the armchair. “Ben and Bill have gotten very good at reading each other’s facial expressions at home. It could be a tough game.”

Mike sits beside Bev, crossing a leg at his ankles. “I think we can say we’re all evenly matched. Audra, explain the rules to us again.”

“It’s _ charades_,” Richie insists, but everyone ignores him.

Audra stands again. “The rules are simple,” she says grandly, eying Richie. “On each slip of paper, I’ve written a word or phrase. Whatever you choose, you will have to act out. Your teammate has three minutes to figure out what it is. We will go back and forth between teammates until there is a winner.” She clasps her hands in front of her. “The team with… shall we say ten”—she pauses here for objections; there are none—“correct answers will win. Any tiebreakers will be determined by a lightning round. One minute, as many slips of paper as you can get through. Understood?”

Ben leans forward, elbows on his thighs. “Have you ever hosted a game show?”

“No,” she answers. “You think I’d be any good at it?”

“Oh, definitely,” Mike says. “Okay, so who goes first?”

“Rock, paper, scissors for the honors,” she decides.

After three rounds, it is determined that the order is Bill, Bev, Richie.

Bill gets up, cracks his knuckles, and fishes a slip of paper out of the bowl. “Ben,” he says. “Are you looking at me? Look at me. Right at me.”

Ben nods, frowning in concentration, and Audra starts the timer. Bill puts up three fingers; Ben cups his chin in his hand, and watches.

A minute in, Ben shouts, “Taking a shower!” and Richie is really not sure how he got that. It looked, like—like some sort of Satanical ritual. He would’ve said something like _ suicide attempt_, but only because it looked like Bill was tying a noose around his neck, not washing his hair, and Richie is glad he's not his partner. That’s morbid as shit.

Bill taps his nose.

It takes Eddie less time than that to figure out Richie is playing hopscotch, and Mike chokes around the word _ Pennywise _after fifteen seconds of Bev doing that clown’s ridiculous dance routine.

It gets harder after that, the timer buzzing before anyone’s figured anything out. At one point, Eddie stares at Richie like he has two heads, breaking their lead for two rounds, almost like he’s not paying attention, fond in his confusion. Ben stumbles over bowling because Bill mimes it out like he’s breaking his arm, and Mike apparently has no idea what sewing looks like when it’s Bev’s turn. Richie barely guesses that Eddie is scuba diving. Audra fills up their glasses when they ask and giggles behind her hand when Bill makes a mockery of _ feeding the ducks. _

“That’s not how you do that,” Mike says flatly. “You’ve been to my farm. What the fuck, man.”

“I know how to m-milk a cow,” Bill defends. “You just toss bread to the ducks, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Mike replies, “if you’re a monster.”

Eddie’s all but vibrating next to Richie, knees smacking into each other. Richie drops a hand to his thigh, squeezes, and murmurs, “Breathe. It’s just a game.”

“I am highly competitive,” Eddie snaps at him. “If we get this one right, we win. If we get it wrong, we have to go through an entire round again and there’s a chance for the lightning round tiebreaker. I want to avoid that.”

Richie thinks he can feel his heartbeat in his leg. “Right, of course,” he agrees. “Is there some sort of prize for winning?” He glances towards the others.

Bev shrugs. “My undying affection?”

“Pass,” Richie says with a wrinkle of his nose.

“I’ll take it,” Ben says to her.

She grins at him. “You already have it.”

Richie pretends to gag. 

“I just like to win,” Eddie tells Richie. “There doesn’t need to be a prize. Don’t let me down, Trashmouth.” He wipes his palms on his jeans, stands, and lets Mike pat him on the small of his back. He offers him a smile, kind of cagey, looks at Audra, who winks at him, and plucks a slip out of the bowl.

Richie watches him closely, sees him read the word. He sighs, blinks, and catches Richie’s gaze. He seems apprehensive, nervous almost, but this is—it’s just charades. Nothing is on the line here. He drops the paper to the floor, shoves his hands in his pockets, and waits.

Bill shifts away from Richie, reaching over for his wine glass. Bev pulls her phone out as it pings and says, “Oh, Patty says hi, everyone.”

“Hi,” Richie greets, lifting a hand.

Bev scrunches up her nose as she laughs, fingers flying across the screen.

Audra sets the timer, three minutes, and shuffles back.

For a few seconds, Eddie just stands there, and Richie can tell he’s not doing it yet. He’s particularly attuned to Eddie’s motions and mannerisms, much of which have not changed since high school. He hones in on them now—on the tentative rocking of his heels, on the way he sucks on his lower lip.

Richie thinks maybe two whole minutes have passed with just Eddie standing there, staring at him, and then Eddie moves.

It’s quick, efficient, and entirely graceless, the way Eddie drops into position, and Richie laughs. “Oh, that’s easy,” he says. “A marriage proposal.”

A pregnant pause falls over them. Audra inhales sharply. 

Eddie taps his nose, but does not get back up. 

Richie stares. He thinks his foot jerks out but he also may be frozen in place. 

Eddie blinks at him. “I’ve only done one of these and everything fucking sucked after it, so forgive me if it’s not perfect.”

Bev reaches out to clutch Ben’s wrist.

Richie goes, “What,” and then catches the box in Eddie’s hands. “If this is a very intricate way to win charades, Eddie, I’m going to—”

“It’s not,” Eddie interrupts. “It’s—I’m doing exactly what you think I’m doing.”

“Which is what,” Richie croaks. His heart beats so loudly he can hear it as if he’s having an out of body experience. It’s like a drum, being slammed over and over to the music his nerves make, three parts excitement and one part fear. It’s a pretty sick beat, actually. Sounds kind of like the opening to Van Halen’s _ Hot For Teacher_. He thinks maybe his head is spinning, but it is only the house around him that’s moving. Everything else—_Eddie_—stands still, perfect, sharp, and in technicolor.

Eddie, tanned from almost an entire year in Los Angeles.

Eddie, hair long and fluffy, his own choice and no one else’s.

Eddie, brown eyes and pink mouth.

Eddie, his best friend and the love of his life.

Eddie, on one knee with a ring, looking at him like Richie could solve every one of life’s problems.

Eddie, wanting _ him_, which is—it’s been a year, almost, and it's still a shock almost everyday.

“I had a whole speech, but I forgot it,” Eddie admits. He grins shyly at him and Richie has the untimely urge to vomit. He squashes it down, shoving his hands under his thighs. He can still feel them shake. “B-but when I was ten, I told Bill I wanted to marry you. You know that story.”

“Yeah,” Richie agrees. “Fifth grade. The carnival. Churros or something. Sally Mueller.”

Bev gasps out, “_What_?”

“I’ll tuh-tell you later,” Bill hisses.

“I was in love with you all the way up until we went to college,” Eddie continues, wetting his lips, “and I had a whole plan. I was going to finally be able to be honest with you when we got away from that awful place, but I forgot you. I forgot everyone and everything and I didn’t know why I had this four-month plan to transfer schools come December.”

“I hate that fucking clown,” Ben blurts.

“_Shut up_,” Bill insists.

Richie hardly hears him. It’s just Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, and the pounding of his heart in his ears.

“I remembered you sporadically,” he says. “There was this annoying kid on my floor who wasn’t funny, and this other guy who _ was _ but dressed too nicely, and when I was twenty, I kissed this other boy who was all wrong, but he had glasses that took up his whole face. I thought maybe that meant I couldn’t be gay, but it just meant it didn’t matter if it wasn’t you.”

Okay, Richie is definitely going to throw up now.

_Don’t you dare_, he hears Stan snap at him in his ear. _ Listen._

He swallows around it, shivering. “I get that,” he mumbles back, unable to speak any louder.

This is like all of his fantasies, childhood and otherwise, coming true. He’d imagined the shit out of this moment the first time Eddie kissed him. Had doodled his name like a fuckin’ schoolgirl on the inside of his science binder and almost failed the class after he’d gotten him off in the quarry. Had made himself cry when he thought about the life he could live with Eddie had they both decided on schools in the same state. Had his own plan to confess everything and more to him when they all got back for winter break, after seeing what normal people were like in California.

“Marrying Myra was almost as much of a blur as our entire childhood was until now, but I was never really happy with her,” he says. “We were friends for a while and then she grew spiteful because I didn’t want kids and I didn’t want to do things married couples do, but she didn’t want me to leave, and I liked having someone take care of me. I was always used to that, with my mother and all, but… but she was taking care of me all wrong, and I didn’t realize it. She was smothering me and babying me and I just—I just let it happen. I didn’t know I was any better than that, and then I saw you on a late show or something maybe ten years ago.”

Richie bites down on his bottom lip, digs his teeth there. Worries the flesh so hard he thinks he feels it split, tastes the tang of blood. He tries to think about which shows he’d been on when he was thirty, but there’s not much there in terms of memory—that’d been a decade of parties and nameless faces and things he’d done he’s not entirely proud of—but he’d done something that spoke to Eddie, and he’s not sure what that is. He hadn’t done anything that was particularly meaningful to _ him_, so.

“I was shitty ten years ago,” Richie blurts out. “Why were you watching that?”

“Mhm,” Mike agrees. “Wait, do you guys remember the scandal where—”

“Jesus fucking _ Christ_,” Bill snaps.

“Doesn’t matter,” Eddie says. “I don’t remember anything you did. I don’t even know what you said. It is inconsequential. You were just on it and I—I watched you and I had the most surreal experience of remembering how you—some guy I didn’t fucking know—how you used to—” He breaks off, glances at Bill, and Bill encourages him with a nod. Richie watches it, catches Bev’s eyes, which she widens, bright and excited. “How you used to take care of me,” Eddie presses on. “You were mean—”

“I was never mean,” Richie interrupts.

“No, not mean,” Eddie amends, looking thoughtful. “You just… you didn’t treat me like I was fragile, or that my asthma meant anything, and you used to carry around—”

“An extra inhaler in my backpack,” Richie finishes for him. “Even though you never needed it, I just wanted to be prepared—”

“You just treated me like a normal kid,” he says. “Like maybe everything I was… maybe it was okay, the things that made me up, they weren’t bad, like my mom said. You just… you just saw _ me. _You all did—”

“You are not proposing to all of us,” Ben says.

“If one more fuh-fuh-ucking person who is not Eddie or Richie _ speaks_—”

“Honey,” Audra admonishes.

“It’s fine,” Eddie says, “I didn’t choose to do this in front of all of you so you can be quiet.”

Richie stares at Eddie, eyebrows, lips, eyes, eyes, _ eyes_, and admits, “I honestly have no idea what any of you are saying.”

Eddie smiles at him. His teeth are just as nice as the rest of him. “No one’s ever treated me like that, like the me they saw was all that mattered. Like—like it was enough. Like _ I _ am enough.” 

“You are,” Richie says. He thinks his voice breaks, like it just shatters in two, and his heart constricts. Eddie hadn’t known that, had forgotten all about how important and worth it and amazing and brave he was, and that’s the real tragedy. Not how the magic tore them all apart, not how he ended up married to his mother, but that he didn’t know his _ worth_. “You’ve always been more than enough. I always thought you were the best, no matter what you were doing.” He scrubs his hand over his face, strung out and vulnerable, wrung out for some reason, like he’s thirteen again—thirteen and _ aware_.

“Sometimes it felt like you were the only one,” Eddie says. “You told me I had all the time in the world to make up for all the stupid shit I did when I didn’t know any better. This is the first thing I woulda done if I’d remembered. If I’d been able to. Or maybe you would’ve done it. I don’t know. I don’t know who we would have been back then, but I know who we are now, and I know what I want.”

Richie shivers like he’s cold, but the room only seems to get hotter. He swallows around the lump in his throat. “And what do you want, Eds?”

Without hesitation: “You.”

“You gotta be more specific,” Richie replies. “You already got me.”

“I want you to marry me,” Eddie corrects. His mouth twitches like he knows what Richie will say next, like he’s being difficult on purpose. “That’s why my leg is cramping right now.”

“Your own fault for kneeling and then telling a fifteen-minute story,” Richie teases. “Thought you forgot your speech.”

“I did. That wasn’t it. That was, like, a horribly condensed version. Bill knows what I was going to say.”

Richie twists his head to look at him, their oldest friend, sitting smugly behind them. “Did some editing for the both of you,” Bill says. “I _ can _ end things well; I’ll have you know.”

_No stutter_, Richie thinks nonsensically. “Can’t say I’ll ever believe you,” he quips, unable to help himself. “Eddie doesn’t remember it.”

“He wrote it down, he’ll tell you,” Bev says.

“You knew too?”

“He practiced on me,” she admits. “It made me cry.”

Eddie quirks a brow at her. “Everything makes you cry.”

“_I’m _ going to cry if you don’t get on with it,” Ben says, but he’s smiling as he says it. “Why does everything always have to be a painful production with the two of you?”

Richie flips him off, says, “You’re on thin ice, Haystack.” 

He pushes himself up and trips over his feet. He’s dizzy, though he’s not sure from what—wine or Eddie? He’s leaning towards the latter. There isn’t enough alcohol in the world that could make him feel like this, like he doesn’t fit in his body, like he’s too small and too big and too little and too much. That, and he’d only had maybe four glasses of wine tonight, one of which he didn’t finish. Pretty tame for their usual Game Night; last time they played Chutes and Ladders and it got so heated Bev all but blacked out.

He goes over to Eddie, gets down to his level, whispers, “Ask, Spaghetti.”

Eddie is so close now, and he is overwhelmed by him. With him. Because of him. He sees him blink, catches how his lashes brush his cheeks, and when he looks at him again, it’s like the first time when they were kids, the first time when they were adults, and all the other times in between. It’s like he can see their past and their present and their future in those irises, and he holds onto it, that word (_future_). He gets to have one; they get to have one: him and Eddie, him and Eddie and the rest of the Losers. Even more, what they’re doing right here, it means he wants a future with Richie, a specific one, where they share each other’s names. He loves it all, everything that’s there, everything he’s able to see, but that’s nothing new. If he gets to do it with Eddie, he’ll love it. It doesn’t matter what it is.

They’re caught in each other’s gazes like flies in a trap. The strength of Eddie’s wraps around him like a warm hug, an embrace he never wants to leave, and his fingers twitch. He wants to touch, so he does, curling his fingers around Eddie’s face. Eddie leans into him, eyes fluttering shut for the span of a millisecond, and then he’s staring again, the same way he used to. The same way Richie sometimes catches him doing now, wide and open, like he’ll never, ever get enough of him.

Richie hopes it stays that way.

Richie hopes he knows he never, ever gets enough of him either. Every bit of it—the facial expressions, and the way he sighs, and how touchy he is. How he can’t stay focused on a movie unless he’s in the theater, and how he only buys candles that smell like vanilla, and how he fits against him, how his limbs hook around him in all the right places. He loves his hair, and his scent, and even that he can’t be bothered to pick up his clothes.

He wonders what parts of him Eddie likes best, hopes he never has to answer that question himself. He knows how sappy he’ll sound when he says _ everything_.

Eddie brushes his nose against his like they aren’t being stared at by five other people and says words to him that sound like _ Doesn’t mean I’m not in love with you in every timeline_, which Richie hasn’t heard in months, except for in his dreams. Hasn’t focused on them, either, despite them being tattooed to his heart. Sometimes he’ll look at Eddie and think, _ You love me as much as I love you, and there is no one else anywhere else that can come between us. _Sometimes he feels like he's living in a fucking fairytale, the way Eddie makes him feel.

Eddie says, “I love you. Every version of me everywhere loves you. There is no world where we exist together that I am not in love with you, and you know that, and I know that, and everyone around us knows that. I’ve been wholly yours for years—when I knew you, and when I didn’t, and when I remembered just bits of you. This is just a formality, really, me asking you this. I don’t need the proof to know that I am yours and you are mine, but—”

“This is it,” Bill whispers to Mike. “At least he remembered some of it.”

“Shut _ up_, Bill,” Bev shushes. “You’re ruining it.”

Eddie flicks his fingers at them, like _ now _ they’re annoying him with their presence, and goes for it. “When I was ten years old, I carved our names into the Kissing Bridge because Bill said that’s what people did when they wanted to marry someone, and I apparently listen to everything Bill has to say.”

“A very persuasive guy,” Richie murmurs, “stutter and all.” They all went into a sewer and fought an alien for that kid, did they not?

“Yeah, well, ten-year-old me is not very different from forty-year-old me, so.” Eddie clears his throat, corners of his mouth twitching, cheeks growing pink. “Will you marry me?”

Somewhere inside him, thirteen-year-old Richie is sobbing. He feels it in his chest, aching and warm, a happiness that is somehow tinged with just a bit of sadness, right there on the edges.

“Yes,” he answers, and he doesn’t think he’s ever said anything with such finality before in his life.

There is a clap behind them, two slaps of Audra’s hands together, and Richie says, “Now everyone get the fuck out of my house.”

“We’ll finish Guh-Game Night at ours,” Bill offers, standing immediately. He nudges Eddie in the thigh, ruffles his hair, and squats beside him. “It was better than the one you p-p-planned,” he tells him, “but you didn’t need all the frills anyway. I told you he’d say yes.”

“So did I!” Patty’s voice comes, tinny from the speaker of Bev’s phone. “Did I _ not_, Eddie? I _ told _ you.”

“Yeah, well,” Audra says, popping up behind Bev to wave at Patty. “He’s almost as blind as Richie. Apparently he couldn’t see the way he looked at him. I tried to replicate that in my last movie, but the director told me to stop because I just looked nauseous.”

“Fair,” says Patty. “Do you remember on Richie’s birthday when—“

“Oh my god, _ yes_, and on St. Patrick’s Day, with the—“

Mike pops up behind them, looping an arm around Bev. “God, one time Eddie literally looked at him like he hung the stars because he killed a spider for him.”

“I’d do the same, what the hell, I’m afraid of those things now too,” Ben adds. “It’s like Rich has no fear. Put that in your vows.” 

It hits Richie that they are once again surrounded by all the people that love them, even Stan, who seems to be in the room with them somehow. He licks his lips, asks, “Did you talk to everyone about this?” 

Eddie shrugs. “Maybe,” he says, and he averts his gaze to the floor.

Richie feels like jelly, thinking about Eddie cornering all of their friends, asking their opinion on his plans, on his proposal. Nervous for some reason that Richie’d say no.

As if Richie would ever, as if he’d had plans that did not include Eddie, as if this was not it for him, as if they were not fucking endgame—

He shoves at Bill’s shoulder, knowing if he doesn’t get his hands on Eddie now he will physically combust and that will somehow be even worse than the rest of them watching him run his tongue all over Eddie’s abs. They’ve all heard it before. “Get out,” he orders. “Get out, get out, _ get out_—”

He doesn’t wait until they’re gone before pouncing, knocking Eddie back onto the floor and slotting his mouth over his. Eddie giggles beneath him, kicking at him with his heels. He doesn’t push him away so much as he wraps his legs around his waist, tugging him close so he falls flat against him. He hears the door lock, various cars start, and then he is falling into Eddie’s mouth and his touch. 

“You wanna marry me,” he breathes. “You wanna marry me, you wanna marry me.”

Eddie bites down on his lip. “You _ knew _that.”

“Yeah, when you were _ ten_,” Richie retorts. He nudges at Eddie’s knees, gets him to drop his feet down, and unbuttons his pants, pulling them down his legs. 

“I was not subtle.” Eddie lifts his hips, helps in the removal of his clothes. “I fucking _ measured _your ring finger.” 

Richie kisses him soundly, swallowing his words. “I really thought Bev was starting a jewelry collection.”

“Dumbass,” Eddie mumbles. “You gonna wear it or nah?”

“Where is it?”

“I dunno,” Eddie replies. He goes to grope for it, searching where he dropped it, but gives up to slide his palms down Richie's back and underneath the band of his jeans, cupping the meat of his ass. 

Richie whimpers, one of Eddie’s fingers circling his hole. “I want it,” he whines, even as he kisses him again, limp against him. 

“Your glasses are digging into my face,” Eddie complains. “Take ‘em off.” 

“Wait,” Richie breathes, “after.” He pushes himself up, looking a whole mess with his pants rucked to his knees, and surveys the living room. 

It’s a mess, as it always is when all of them get together, but Eddie is a picture on the floor, pretty and pantless, staring up at him. There’s this eager glint in his eye, all previous nerves having dissipated—which he didn’t need to have in the first place—and he watches Richie with this focus that—

He avoids him for the moment. If he keeps looking back, he’ll never find the ring and he’ll never put it on and they’ll just end up a sweaty, writhing mess on the floor. 

Well, that’s where they’ll end up anyway, but Richie wants to be—he wants the ring when that happens. He wants the _ proof. _

The box has been abandoned to the left of them and Richie lunges for it. Eddie laughs at him, which has him knocking him softly in the jaw, and he hands it over. Their fingers brush against each other; the feeling is heated and charged and Richie feels it shudder through his entire body, settling in his belly. 

“Are you sure?” he asks, looking from Eddie to the ring and back. He doesn’t know why he does. Doesn’t know what the point of questioning it is, just that he has to. One last time. 

“Of course I’m sure,” Eddie replies. “I wouldn’t—why would I _ not _ be sure?”

Richie worries his lower lip, shrugging. “You were sure about the other one, right, and then it turned out you were not happy at all and—“

“Dude,” Eddie interrupts. “Stop. I am sure about this. I am sure about you. Fuck, you’re the only person I’ve ever fucking been sure about.”

“God.” Richie presses the heels of his palms to his eyes. Sniffs. “At least I waited until now to fucking cry. Bill would never let me hear the end of it.”

“I think Audra would make fun of you first,” Eddie corrects. “What’d she say—she tried to model herself after you and it was—“ 

“Actresses are so mean,” Richie mutters.

“Gimme your hand,” Eddie says softly. “I literally just gave you a whole speech about this, but it’s you, dumbass. Never forget that I got kicked out of my own fucking house because of that.”

Richie watches him, each and every movement Eddie makes. Watches the ring shimmer and gleam in the light. It feels like a fever dream as Eddie slips it on his finger. Feels like nothing has ever felt before, like this is the only thing that’s ever fit him. He is mesmerized by it, by someone wanting him like this, by _ Eddie _ wanting him like this. It is hard to believe that he could feel like this, like he’s old and young and happy, happy, _ happy_. Like he's never been sad or lonely in his life. 

Eddie says, “Remember that Stan’s letter came _ here _ because he knew. In fact, that letter, it—“ He rifles for his pants, searches the pockets, and pulls out his wallet. “Look at it.”

“The letter? Now?”

“Yeah,” Eddie replies. “The bottom, specifically.” 

Richie pulls the paper out, folded and creased as if it’s been read over and over, and tries to make out the words towards the end. The writing is smudged and a corner is ripped, but he can see it, what Eddie’s referring to. 

_When you know, you know, Eddie_, Stan says. _ Don’t waste any more time. I think twenty plus years is enough, don’t you?_

“I know what a marriage is supposed to be like,” Eddie tells him, “and I didn’t have that before. What I have with you—it feels like that, and I want to spend the rest of my life knowing there is someone there who wants to be with me for me, no matter how fucking weird I am.” 

Richie pokes him. “You’re not weird.” 

“Well, you are,” Eddie retorts. “All I’m saying is I don’t have to be something I’m not when I’m with you, and I like that. When you know, you know, right, and I knew in that fucking Chinese restaurant. Took my ring off and just fucking _ abandoned _it. Saw you and knew this was it, I wasn’t going to try to fix things with Myra, I was going to let myself want. Let myself be happy. So.” He pauses, looks at Richie, makes him hold his gaze even as Richie’s blurs, and despite not being able to see him correctly, Richie knows he’s the most beautiful thing in the world. “Will you marry me?” 

“You already put this ring on my finger,” Richie says.

“Just answer the question.” 

“Yes, duh, obviously,” Richie breathes, and he thinks about how much he hated Eddie’s wedding ring when he saw it, how it looked ugly and garish when it caught the light. When they get married, and Eddie has a new one, he thinks it’ll look different. It’ll look better because it ties him to _ Richie_. It turns Eddie and Richie to _ EddieandRichie _ the way they used to be. The way they should always have been. “Are we hyphenating?” 

Eddie shakes his head, slides his fingers through Richie’s. Soon they’ll match. Maybe Richie should get him one now too, so that everyone knows Eddie’s off the market. So that they know he’s his. “I want yours,” he tells him. “I’ve always wanted yours.”

* * *

Richie’s comeback tour sells out in under an hour. His fanbase has changed since the last time he was on a stage, and that is fine with him. It means he is being honest with himself, and it means he is not alone in this journey he is going on. Has gone on. He’s forty-three, and for the first time in his life, he thinks maybe he actually _ is _ funny. 

He clears his throat, waits for the applause to die down and finds Eddie in the crowd, sat in the front row with all the other Losers. He smiles, says, “Before I start, I just want to apologize in advance to my husband. I don’t say anything bad about him, I swear, but I think he may make me sleep on the couch anyway.” 

Bill snorts because he knows everything that’s in this script, had helped him tighten it up, had given it flow and purpose and meaning. Richie grins at him and blows a kiss at Eddie, who scowls.

“Okay, so, two years ago,” he starts, “I had a very public breakdown on this very stage—thanks for having me back by the way, I think my vomit is still on the fire escape, I'm gonna sell it on eBay—and then I fucked off for, like, a week, went back to the hometown I quite literally blacked out of my memory, cancelled my entire tour, and moved three of my childhood friends to L.A. I’ve been told this is called a midlife crisis. Yeah, I know, pretty tame for a midlife crisis, but I haven’t even gotten to the serial killer yet.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun facts about this fic:
> 
> 1\. originally eddie was not going to live but i hurt my own feelings halfway through and changed that  
2\. the believing is seeing part that saved eddie's life was literally inspired by the santa clause (1994)- "seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing!  
3\. the entire inspiration for this fic was me reading that bill hader mouths "i miss him" when he's in the quarry after the final battle with It and i was like ???? how can he miss him, he just got reacquainted with him???? UNLESS—  
4\. i have half of richie's comeback set written lmao  
5\. there will most likely be a valentine's day oneshot posted in february based on the memory eddie and richie have the chapter before this


End file.
